An appeal on behalf of the Asian
Tsunami Victims
As the world mourns the dead of one of the biggest natural disasters
ever suffered, Broughtons Bentley has joined forces with Synergy
Publishing to appeal to you, their clients and readers, to dig deep to
help the hundreds of thousands of victims rebuild their shattered lives.
In the moving letter below, former BBC journalist and MP Martin Bell
tells how the stricken areas of Sri Lanka seem like the “very image of
paradise lost.” With your generous donations to UNICEF (the United
Nations Children’s Fund), it will be possible to rebuild the victims’
homes and livelihoods so that their “paradise” can be “regained” as
quickly as possible. Thank you for your generous support.
I’ve seen some disasters in my time, but nothing quite like this.
Visiting the stricken areas of Sri Lanka on UNICEF’s behalf, they seemed
like the very image of paradise lost – as if all the war zones of the
world had been strung together along the rim of the Indian Ocean. And
along with the ferocity of nature’s damage there is even a risk of
landmines. It is ironic that the areas where the tsunami caused the
greatest loss of life – Aceh in Indonesia and Sri Lanka – were both, at
least in part and until recently, war zones. Along with the natural
devastation, there is danger from landmines in some Tamil areas along
the east coast of Sri Lanka. A Sri Lankan Army outpost on the beach near
Batticaloa was destroyed by the raging waters and seven soldiers were
killed, including a brigadier. The anti-personnel mines planted around
the base were swept away and no-one knows where they are.
It’s been a terrible ordeal for all Sri Lankans, but especially for the
children. Even now the full death toll isn’t known – there are so many
people still missing. The schools reopened this week, although not all
of them, for some were destroyed and others are still refugee centres.
In one school in the southern fishing port of Galle 400 children died
out of a total enrolment of 1,000. Of the 800,000 displaced people, it
is estimated that at least 320,000 are children. Some have lost one
parent, others both parents. In the fishing village of Navaladi, where
only 300 people survived out of a population of 2300, we met Madonna
who’s 13 and her sister Marina, 11. They were playing on a swing in a
refugee centre, extraordinarily calm and cheerful under the
circumstances. But the smiles faded when they explained what had
happened to them. As the wall of water rushed through the village, their
mother found a place for them on a boat that managed to escape across
the lagoon. But their mother and two sisters were lost. Their father is
injured and recovering in hospital. They are among the lucky ones, to
have a surviving parent.
The children are vulnerable in other ways. David Bull, Executive
Director of Unicef UK, says “The child survivors of Sri Lanka’s tsunami
generation now have access to food, medicine and water, but still face
devastating trauma and loss, and the risk of cruel exploitation.
Unicef’s next challenge is to protect these children.” It is a challenge
already being met. The conditions are far from ideal. Sadly, and even
pre-tsunami, there was already a problem of child trafficking on the
island, partly connected with the civil war and the enlistment of child
soldiers. The presence in the camps of large numbers of traumatised and
parentless children presents special and urgent problems. There is no
pattern yet of organised exploitation, but there is some disturbing
anecdotal evidence that all is not as it should be. In one case a baby
boy was claimed by no fewer than four different families; he was kept in
a hospital’s intensive care unit to prevent him being abducted. In
another, a UNICEF staff worker, not wearing the usual UNICEF insignia,
visited a camp and asked about parentless children. “What a pity that
you didn’t come earlier,” she was told, “seven pretty girls have just
been taken away.” The imperative is for swift registration of all these
children, and also for a return to whatever normality is possible in
these appalling circumstances. That’s why UNICEF is setting up play
areas in the camps, and providing “schools-in-a-box”, essential
classroom blackboards and writing materials, to schools which would
otherwise have nothing.
If UNICEF is at full stretch, so are all the aid agencies. None of them
have had to cope with anything like this before. All of them pay tribute
to the resilience and endurance of the people of Sri Lanka, who are
helping each other to quite an extraordinary degree. Along with the pain
and grief there is bewilderment. Nothing like this had ever happened in
the island’s history, or even its legends. The sea which was their
friend, and a source of livelihood for so many of them, became their
mortal enemy. One of the most compelling images was that of parents on
the shore, looking out to the sea that had taken their children, as if
expecting it to return them. Or, alternatively, to take them too. It
isn’t only the infrastructure that needs rebuilding. It is the lives of
all these people.
Martin Bell (pictured above)
Tanya Nikolovska
Media Relations Administrator
UNICEF |