S Lanka’s ‘Somalia conditions’
[BBC]
A UN official in a rebel-held area of northern Sri Lanka has said that conditions for displaced people there are “as basic as in Somalia”. John Campbell, from the World Food Programme (WFP), told the BBC Sinhala service that conditions were “as basic as can be” and “much less than ideal”. Mr Campbell was speaking from the rebel-held village of Dharmapuram. The area is close to recent heavy fighting between Tamil Tiger rebels and the Sri Lankan army. Independent journalists are prevented by the government from travelling to war-hit areas of the country – the WFP is one of the few foreign agencies allowed to deliver aid to the area.