Acute malnutrition prevails among uprooted Champoor families

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 July 2012, 23:22 GMT]
Acute malnutrition and hunger prevail among uprooted Champoor families now staying in ‘welfare centres’ that are located at Kaddai-pa'richchaan, Ma'nat-cheanai, Ki'liveddi and Paddiththidal in the Moothoor East. About 4,036 uprooted members of 263 families from Champoor six years ago due to SL military operation launched by the Sri Lanka Army in 2006 are staying in these camps as the government had refused to allow them to resettle in their own villages in Champoor area. According to reports by civil groups that the stoppage of distribution of dry ration relief under the World Food Programme for the last six months has led to the tragic situation in welfare camps.

Male members staying in the camps go for daily manual work for their earning and in some time they go for small scale fishing. But the income derived from these sources is not enough for their survival, according to a report of by a member of the Trincomalee Urban Council Mr S.Nanthakumar who visited the camps last week.

The most affected by malnutrition are about 160 pre-school children and 918 school going students, ninety nine pregnant women, 178 milk feeding mothers, 256 widows, and 31 who lost their parents.

Mr Nanthakumar has requested the civil authorities in the district to resume the distribution of dry ration relief to the families under the World Food Programme immediately.

He has asked the representatives of the international non-government agencies to come to their rescue by supplying relief to ensure their survival from hunger and malnutrition if the SL government authorities fail to resume dry ration relief under the World Food Programme.

Meanwhile, the theme paper of the TESO conference to be convened by the DMK chief Mr M Karunanidhi accuses that in the last two years, New Delhi has given a thousand-hundred million dollars towards rehabilitating Tamils in the island, but this assistance is being used in the areas peopled by the Sinhalese and not for the affected Tamils.

The entire village of Champoor has been grabbed by Colombo in complicity with New Delhi for demographic changes in the country of Eezham Tamils and for structural genocidal purposes, say Tamil political activists in the island.

In June, an Indian corporate, Gateway Industries signed a 4 billion dollar direct foreign investment deal with genocidal Colombo to create a special industrial zone for heavy industries in Trincomalee in the land grabbed earlier for the High Security Zone by the Sinhala military.

Residents of Champoor, in the Trincomalee District have filed a Fundamental Rights (FR) petition in the Supreme Court on 15 June 2012, challenging the demarcation of a Special Zone for Heavy Industries (SZHI) through Gazette Extraordinary No. 1758/26 issued on 17 May 2012, Colombo media reports said.

Under a master plan, a series of constructions, including a deep water jetty, a bulk commodities terminal, a power plant, and a host of facilities for heavy industries and complementary industries are going to be built in the appropriated zone, said Chinese news agency Xinhua.

Colombo’s direct investment target for 2012 was 2 billion dollar. But India alone has doubly fulfilled Colombo’s expectation by its $4 billion investment.

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