UN experts for setting up inquiry to address Lanka crisis

(May 09, New York, Sri Lanka Guardian) A group of United Nations' independent experts has asked the Human Rights Council to urgently set up an international inquiry to address the critical situation in Sri Lanka amid fighting between the Army and LTTE rebels.

'There is an urgent need to establish an international commission of inquiry to document the events of recent months and to monitor ongoing developments,' the UN experts dealing with summary executions, right to health, right to food and water and sanitation said in a joint statement.

'The current humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka gives cause for deep concern, not only in terms of the number of civilians who have been and continue to be killed, but because of a dramatic lack of transparency and accountability,' the experts- Philip Alston, Anand Grover, Olivier De Schutter and Catarina de Albuquerque- said in the statement.

There is a good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and still the Lankan government is yet to account for the casualties, or to allow journalists and humanitarian monitors in the war zone, UN expert on summary executions Alston said.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said over 1,96,000 people have fled the conflict zone, a shrinking pocket of land on the north-east coastline, where clashes continue between government troops and Tamil Tigers while at least 50,000 people are still trapped there.

The experts stressed that continuing catastrophic situation of civilians in Sri Lanka trapped in the middle of the fighting in an area measuring less than 10 square kilometre, must be immediately addressed.

'These civilians do not have sufficient access to food, essential medical supplies or services and safe water and sanitation. Even if they do escape death or injury at the hands of the hostile parties, their continued presence in this area without access to these basic rights is an effective death sentence,' declared the experts.

They said shipments of food and medicine to the so-called 'no-fire zone' have been grossly insufficient over the past month and the government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as chlorine tablets.

The experts noted that as a result of the blackout on independent information sources,' it is impossible to verify any of the government's claims as to the number of casualties till date or as to the steps that it says it is taking in order to minimise the further killing of innocent civilians, and ensure aid delivery.

'When people manage to escape, they reportedly continue to face scant supplies, entirely insufficient access to adequate medical treatment and severely overcrowded hospitals, providing no relief to the horrors they had been living,' UN expert on the right to health Grover said.

De Schutter, the UN expert on the right to food, added that access to food has also been hampered by arduous and lengthy registration procedures for the internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Meanwhile, UN expert on water and sanitation Albuquerque voiced concern about 'water shortages reported at Omanthai and at most of the transit sites as well as inadequate sanitation facilities, which put the health and lives of the population at further risk.'

The group also asked the Lankan government to provide convincing evidence to the international community that it is respecting its obligations under human rights and international humanitarian law.

-Sri Lanka Guardian