Colombo – With the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) in camps in Vavuniya, the government-controlled district adjoining the LTTE conflict zone, now at over 150,000, IOM is ramping up its response to the crisis with new tent shipments and the arrival of a team of emergency public health specialists.

IOM Colombo today took delivery of the first 400 of 4,000 tents ordered from China and Dubai that will be trucked directly to Vavuniya. The shipments will continue over the next ten days. The tents will complement thousands of emergency shelters built by IOM to house the influx of IDPs, most of whom are escapees from the LTTE-controlled enclave in neighbouring Mullaitivu district.

"The needs are huge. There are just more people than we can cope with at this point. We need more shelter, more sanitation, more food, more health care – everything," says IOM Sri Lanka Emergency Coordinator Giovanni Cassani. In response to a request from the Ministry of Health, IOM on Thursday transported 80 government doctors from Colombo to Vavuniya, who will reinforce the district's overstretched medical staff.

IOM-leased trucks and buses offer free transport to government, UN agencies and NGOs moving aid workers and relief goods into Vavuniya and other conflict-affected areas. 

As IDPs continue to flood into Vavuniya, the first 400 of some 3,000 IDPs displaced from villages in the Musali division of neighbouring Mannar district to the west returned to their homes after two years with help from the government and international agencies.

IOM, which has operated in Mannar since 2002, is supporting the returns by providing water tanks, sanitation, temporary shelters, and repairs to homes and schools, through a project funded by Australia.

IOM relief operations for IDPs in northern Sri Lanka are currently funded by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the UK, the Netherlands, Australia and the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO).

Sri Lanka has been an IOM member state since 1990, when the organization facilitated the return of 90,000 stranded Sri Lankan migrants from the Middle East during the first Gulf War. IOM opened its Colombo office in 2002 and has had a major presence in the country, including six sub-offices in the north and east, since the December 2004 tsunami.

In addition to emergency response and reconstruction projects, IOM's activities in Sri Lanka include technical cooperation in migration management, capacity building, counter trafficking and return and reintegration.

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For more information please contact: Aurela Rincon, Tel. +94 11 5325 392 (Ext. 379), E-mail: arincon@iom.int; Passanna Gunasekera, Tel. +94 11 5325 300 (Ext. 341), E-mail: pgunasekera@iom.int; or Chris Lom, Tel. +94 772300952 (mobile), E-mail: clom@iom.int