ICRC Delegation Meets NESOHR Chairperson in Kilinochchi
An ICRC delegation consisting of Mr. Bernhard Julier, Head of Operations for Central and South Asia, Mr. Thierry Meyrat, Head of Delegation of Sri Lank, Ms. Rachel Bernhard, Head of Sub Delegation at Kilinochchi met the Chairperson, Rev. Fr. Karunaratnam, of the NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR) to exchange information of mutual interest. The meeting was very cordial and friendly.
 After the initial introduction and exchange of pleasantries, the visitors asked Father to convey their deepest condolences to the friends and family of Mr. Chandra Nehru, who was one of the founding members of NESOHR and brutally murdered last week. Ms. Bernhard requested the list of 23 children released by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) recently. On the providing the list, Fr. Karunaratnam described the behavior of the children during the event. Five children protested violently about going with their parents. Finally, some of them were persuaded to go. Currently, only two of the 23 are still with NESOHR awaiting the arrival of their parents. Fr. Karunaratnam also offered ICRC NESOHR’s cooperation and assistance in freeing any children the ICRC may be working on. Then the delegation wanted to know how the counseling of the Tsunami survivors is progressing. NESOHR is only coordination this activity, several organizations are helping with their resources and it is going well though this activity did not start early enough for some survivors. There are several INGOs like the ICRC working together to provide relief to the Tsunami survivors.
The delegation was interested to find out any other needs of the Tsunami survivors that the NESOHR counseling activity might have unearthed. Bicycles, cooking utensils, kitchen storage containers for spices etc., school uniforms to the children are some of the specifics mentioned. The major difference between the war related displacements and the Tsunami ones are that there used to be more women survivors of war as opposed to more men survivors resulting from the Tsunami. So, the psycho-social needs of the survivors are different this time.
17 February 2005
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Europe which has a total population of 800 million is made up of 45 language based nation states. South Asia which has a total population of one billion, (1000 million) is comprised of four states. Who is preventing and therefore benefiting by limiting new nation-states in South Asia?
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