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(CNS PHOTO FROM REUTERS)
Northern California’s Weekly Catholic Newspaper
Newborns share a bed while pregnant women lie on the floor in an overcrowded ward at the Karapitiya hospital near Galle, Sri Lanka, Jan. 9. The hospital has been struggling to cope after a nearby maternity clinic was severely damaged in the Indian Ocean tsunamis.
Tsunamis add pain to region already hit by millions of displaced people By Patricia Zapor WASHINGTON (CNS) – Even before destructive tsunamis hit countries in South and Southeast Asia two weeks ago, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and other countries in the region already had several million people living as refugees. With the world’s attention now focused on aiding survivors of one of the most widespread natural disasters in recent history, refugee assistance organizations are concerned about protecting vulnerable populations of people, including millions who had been displaced from their homes since long before December, and groups such as orphaned children. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which serves as a global clearinghouse for the protection and resettlement of refugees, has taken the unprecedented step of jumping into disaster relief after the tsunamis. The organization’s mandate is to aid refugees, defined as people who have fled their home countries due to war or persecution. The UNHCR has never before handled a major relief operation in response to a natural disaster.
“The enormity of this crisis requires all of us to contribute our expertise and resources,” said a statement from Janet Lim, director of the agency’s Bureau for Asia and the Pacific. “UNHCR has long experience in Somalia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, so it is logical for us to use our knowledge, means and expertise to help.” But while the U.N. agency said it would not divert resources from its primary refugee activities, Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said “the main concern of everybody on the ground there is disaster relief. Our main concern is to maintain protection for people who were not in the disaster.” “We’re thrilled there’s been such a terrific response to the tsunami,” said Brown. But she noted that the countries hardest hit by the tsunamis were providing refuge already to hundreds of thousands of refugees. As of the end of 2003, the most recent year for which figures were available, Thailand was hosting more than 400,000 refugees, most from neighboring Laos and Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. India had more
than 300,000 refugees from Sri Lanka, China, Myanmar, Afghanistan and other countries. Within Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Myanmar, another 2 million to 4 million people were considered “internally displaced” — still living in their own countries but forced by violence or persecution to live away from their homes, often in tent camps. The Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said the tsunamis once again displaced some of those refugees, including a group of 1,000 Sri Lankans living in a Christian missionary hostel in India’s Tamil Nadu state who were safely evacuated. Besides causing the deaths of at least 150,000 people in 11 countries, the tsunamis obliterated the homes of hundreds of thousands more, and destroyed the sources of employment for many. Estimates of the number of people displaced by the disaster ran into the millions. The International Catholic Migration Commission, which represents 172 church-run organizations in 65 TSUNAMI, page 4
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S EDITION Catholic Studies Institute. . 8
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St. Patrick’s rector
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Vocations section. . . . . . 9-11 Editorial and letters . . . . . 12 Scripture and reflection . . . 14 Top 10 films . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Datebook . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Catholic singer’s CD ~ Page 18 ~ January 14, 2005
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