The past two weeks have been marked by continuous fighting between government security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the north and in the east, resulting in new casualties among civilians. The Jaffna peninsula is still inaccessible by road owing to fighting in Muhamalai.

On 8 November, there was shelling in the densely populated area of Kathiraveli, a coastal hamlet north of Vakarai. Among the thousands of internally displaced persons who had gathered in the region, 75 civilians were injured and 39 others killed. The dead and the wounded were taken to the hospital in Vakarai. An ICRC convoy, which reached Vakarai the same day, transferred 69 emergency cases to the hospital in Valiaichchenai, a better-equipped facility in a government-controlled area. A second ICRC convoy, which reached Kathiraveli the next day, delivered aid to civilians there. Following the attack on 8 November, owing to inadequate security guarantees, the ICRC was able to visit displaced persons in the area only once, on 20 November. Since then, no humanitarian organization has been able to go to the Vakarai area where more than 30,000 civilians, in urgent need of food, are living precariously.
Health

The ICRC has continued to support hospitals and other health facilities in the north and the east. Over the past two weeks, 36 seriously ill persons and an equal number of their friends and relatives, accompanied by a doctor, have been transferred from the Jaffna Teaching Hospital to Colombo on ICRC flights. The ICRC also took pathological specimens from Jaffna to Colombo. Essential medical supplies including medicines, vaccines and dressing materials were brought from Colombo to meet the needs of the teaching hospital and the health services in Jaffna. Volunteers from the Sri Lanka Red Cross Society, with help from the ICRC, continued to organize hygiene-promotion and disease-prevention activities among the displaced persons in Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and the Vanni. The hospital in Vakarai received one basic health kit (covering the needs of 1,000 people for three months), dressing materials, antibiotics, infusion kits, painkillers and 50 body bags. The following items were delivered to the hospital in Valiaichchenai: a surgical kit for the treatment of 100 war-wounded and additional medical supplies (dressing materials, infusion kits, antibiotics and painkillers). The ICRC also continued to support the Sri Lanka Red Cross mobile health teams in Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa which are providing basic health-care services for the displaced population.
Economic security

During the past two weeks, the ICRC has carried out several surveys to determine how to revive and sustain the agricultural activities of those affected by the conflict in Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Kilinochchi districts. Agricultural implements were distributed to 700 farmers affected by the conflict in Vavuniya and in Mannar and to more than 400 returnee families in Seruvilla. The ICRC has also distributed 90 mosquito nets to the displaced persons at Periyakulam in Vavuniya North, and 74 essential household items to people affected by the conflict in Thoppur, Barathipuram, Jinna Nagar, Pala Thoppur and Allai Nagar in Mutur. In Vakarai, the ICRC supplied essential household items to 1,163 families.
Water and habitat

Over the past few weeks, the ICRC's Jaffna office has arranged for the construction of several emergency latrines for the displaced persons temporarily settled in Chavakachcheri division. In the Vanni, the ICRC rehabilitated eight water-distribution points for residents in rural areas, constructed several emergency latrines at the Veravil site for displaced persons, distributed construction materials among 20 families housed in temporary shelters at the Jeyapuram site for displaced persons, and continued rehabilitation work on the water system at Mallavi Hospital, west of Kilinochchi. In the Trincomalee district, the ICRC provided a drinking-water bowser for about 500 displaced persons settled in the Eachantivu and Alankerny schools in the Kinniya area. ICRC engineers also repaired a well at the Iruthayapuram church, in Mutur, where some 800 displaced persons are settled. In Mankerni, 374 tents have been distributed to displaced families and 12 emergency latrines constructed, bringing the total number of latrines completed in the Vakarai area to 64. In the Ampara district, the displaced persons in Alayadiwembu-Akkaraipattu were provided with 52 temporary family shelters, while two open wells have been constructed and another repaired in "4th Colony" village.
Restoring family links

The ICRC has been working closely with the Sri Lanka Red Cross to help restore and maintain contact among members of families separated by the conflict. Since 23 October, the ICRC has collected 152 family messages and distributed 81; since the beginning of August, more than 770 people have been put back in touch with their families and the names of over 2,000 others have been registered by the ICRC and the Sri Lanka Red Cross.
Visiting detainees

Over the past two weeks, the ICRC has continued to visit people arrested for security reasons. ICRC delegates carried out 11 detention visits in which they registered or held private interviews with nearly 200 detainees. Nine Red Cross messages were distributed to detainees and four were collected to be handed over to relatives.
Civilian population

Families continued to report abductions of relatives by unknown persons throughout the country. In the last two weeks, 21 abductions were documented. The ICRC collected two bodies in Batticaloa during the period covered by this report.
ICRC presence at crossing points

In the last two weeks, the ICRC acted as a neutral intermediary to facilitate the transfer of some 7,946 civilians at the Omanthai and Uyilankulam lines.


Since June 2006, the ICRC has: