Human Rights Report for November 2008
Heavy floods due to monsoon rain caused extensive damages and creted more IDPs in Vanni during November. The damages caused by the floods as estimated by the District Secretariats are summarized below. Aerial bombing and shelling also continued. Arrests of Tamils in GoSL parts of the island also increased.
The frightening levels of deaths squad style killing and white-van abduction shifted from Jaffina to Batticaloa in November as demonstrated by the November statistics. Families were murdered en-masse in batticaloa during November . Four members of another family were shot and killed by paramilitary groups in Batticaloa. Another nine members form two families were abducted in Batticaloa in a single incident on of those shot and killed and three of those abducted in Batticaloa are children Under 15.
Civilian toll for the month of November are: killed – 67; disappeared – 46; injured – 73; sought protection at the Human Commission (Jaffina) – 7and arrested 733.
The total number of people displaced since 2006 in vanni as at end of November is 230,000. This number temporarily increased further in November due to the floods as shown below in the table on flood damages.
Note: The statistics given do not include all of the civilian casualties during the month due to limitations on the resources available to NESoHR which are caused by many factors including restrictions on fuel, restrictions on office equipment, and disruption caused by large scale displacement.
Flood Damages:
Torrential rain in Vanni during the last week of November caused floods of a scale unseen for a decade. The flood disaster occurred at a time when more that half the population in Vanni had displaced over the few months prior to it. The flood disaster came when the need of the already displaced IDPs have not been adequately met due to restrictions of many types. The havoc caused by the flood disaster was therefore many folds worse that otherwise. Both Mullaithivu and Kilinochchi district secretariats had drawn up a list of damages and the cost of damages in their respective area. A summary of their list are given in the table below. According to these two Secretariats the total cost of damages due to the floods exceeds LKR 5 billion.
