Aid worker says Sri Lankan conflict blocks tsunami reconstruction

Published: 2006-08-17

POINT PEDRO, Sri Lanka (CNS) -- The increasingly tense civil conflict between Sri Lankan government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has blocked tsunami reconstruction work, said a church aid worker. "We are forced to suspend all tsunami relief work. ... Our staff is now scared of going to areas like Muttur," said Father Francis Dias, head of the church's social services in Trincomalee. "Though we have plenty of money to help the people, we cannot do much in situations like this. The tragedy is that the suffering of the people is becoming worse," Father Dias told Catholic News Service in an early August telephone interview. Seventeen Tamils working with the Paris-based Action Against Hunger were massacred in early August in their Muttur office during the so-called "water war" between government forces and Tamil rebels. More than 300 people -- soldiers, rebels and civilians -- have been killed in the water war as government forces tried to open the water supply closed by the rebels. Because of the blocked system, water was denied to the majority ethnic Sinhalese villages.

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