New year celebration, among the most forgotten of the tsunami
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008Melani Manel Perera; 12/4/08
Dozens of families are “forgotten” by the government, which is holding in camps refugees with water and electricity problems - 5 toilets for 52 families. It is not giving them new homes, nor work or schooling. A gift package of a few euro will make the celebration of the new year more serene, on April 13. A gift package for the poorest victims of the tsunami of 2004, to allow them to celebrate Suriya Mangallaya (Feast of the sun), the new year of the Sinhala and Tamils, which falls between April 13 and 14. In the Sunanda Upananda camp in Moratuwa, a district of Colombo, 52 families, “forgotten” by the state, will receive 5 kilogrammes of rice, two coconuts, some clothing, dry food and handmade traditional sweets, at a value of about 1,500 rupees (9.10 euro). Sugala Kumarie, coordinator of the People’s planning commission, explains to AsiaNews that the situation in the camp is the worst in the district of Colombo.
