Colombo – With a flood of over 110,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the past ten days into Vavuniya, the government-controlled district adjoining the LTTE conflict zone, IOM is racing to provide shelter and sanitation for nearly 40,000 new arrivals.

The IOM Vavuniya team, which now numbers over 130, including 30 staff and 100 locally recruited labourers, has already built 2,500 emergency shelters but is now turning to tents as the fastest way to shelter the IDPs from the extreme heat.  IOM Sri Lanka has 400 tents in stock and is flying in a further 4,000 to Colombo from Dubai and China on 29 April. 

"Many of the new arrivals have been displaced repeatedly by the conflict. Some are injured, they have had very little medical care, almost no food and water and have had to walk for days. They need help now and we have to move fast," says IOM Sri Lanka Chief of Mission Mohammed Abdiker.

IOM, which is working closely with the government, UN and NGO partners, is also providing free transport for tents and other relief items donated by other agencies. At the end of last week it transported and erected 422 tents provided by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which will house some 3,000 new arrivals at a newly established Manik Farm camp.

The IOM team is also working closely with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), building latrines and transporting and distributing non-food relief items in the same camp.

Summer temperatures and overcrowding in IDP camps mean that water and sanitation are now a top priority for the government and humanitarian agencies on the ground.

IOM has already constructed some 350 emergency latrines and installed 13 water bowsers or bladders providing about 364,000 litres of drinking water a day to 70,000 IDPs in the camps.

The IOM team has also installed a bowser at the Omanthai government checkpoint on the road north to Kilinochchi, where IDPs are screened before entering the camps, and has been asked by the authorities to improve sanitation facilities at the site.

But according to Abdiker, the influx of IDPs at a time when most agencies are under-strength on the ground due to earlier security concerns means that the humanitarian response will need to be ramped up significantly in the coming days and weeks to meet growing needs.

"We see major shortfalls in shelter, water and sanitation, health, logistics support and IDP registration and are appealing for international donor support in all those areas. Vavuniya is also only part of the story. There are also significant numbers of IDPs in Trincomalee, Jaffna and Mannar districts who also need our help," he says.

IOM relief operations for IDPs in northern Sri Lanka are currently funded by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), 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, IOM Sri Lanka, Tel. +94 11 5325 392 (Ext. 379), E-mail: arincon@iom.int  or Passanna Gunasekera, Tel. +94 11 5325 300 (Ext. 341), E-mail: pgunasekera@iom.int