An opposition MP in
The situation in the Internally Displaced Camps in the North are so dire that these person if given the freedom to move out of these camps would prefer to live under trees rather than inside the camps, United National Party (UNP) MP S.B Dissanayake told a news conference.
“The situation in those camps is so bad that if the people were given the freedom will go and live under trees,” Mr. Dissanayake was reported as saying by the Daily Mirror newspaper.
“There are so many diseases spreading within these camps, there are no sanitation facilities, and water is scarce,” he noted.
“At this time when we must make the Tamil people feel equal we are just angering them by keeping them within these camps that aren’t just prisons but are almost like hell,” he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, a row has broken out in the Sri Lankan papers between supporters of the government and the aid agencies over the toilets (or lack thereof) in the camps.
The Sri Lankan government says it is the United Nations and its humanitarian agency partners who are responsible for building the toilets, according to reports from
Thus, it is of little surprise that that government claims it is not happy with the quality and design of the toilets, which can best be described as open pit latrines with some wooden supports to cover the area - once the pit is filled, a new one is dug somewhere else.