True Tales from Sri Lanka, Part IV

And when it falls apart . . .

A conversation at a camp for IDPs (internally displaced persons) in Sri Lanka:

Tell me, friend, where are you coming from?
- From another IDP camp, 100 km from here.

And why did you leave there?
- Because of the war. There is shelling and gunfire. It is unsafe.

And when did you arrive here?
- This morning, with my wife and three-year-old daughter. We came on a bus provided by the government.

How long ago did you first leave your home?
- We left almost one year ago . . . we have been displaced for one year. The tsunami destroyed our home two years ago. The house was rebuilt, but then we fled the war.

Will you go back?
- If it is safe. . . . I do not know. . . . Perhaps our house has been destroyed again.

And what will you do in the meantime?
- My friend, what is there to do? I am a fisherman. Here there is no ocean, and here I have no boat. Here we have no land. Here I am dependent. But all of my relatives have also had to leave their villages; I have no other place to go. If I did, I would not be here. So, what can I do? I will hope for a more peaceful time. This is a difficult time: War. . . tsunami . . . war. . . . This is how life can seem to fall apart.

Gretchen Alther, associate for UUSC's Rights in Humanitarian Crises program, recently visited tsunami-affected communities and IDP camps in Sri Lanka.