Current Situation

Currently, nearly 300,000 civilians are confined in modern-day internment camps, surrounded by barbed wire and thousands of armed guards. Many are children. They do not have the freedom of movement to leave the camp, as is customary with international norms and international law. Sri Lanka continues to limit the access for humanitarian aid organizations and media despite the desperate need for water, medicines and other relief supplies.

Human Rights Watch has called the detention of civilians illegal and has repeatedly called for Sri Lanka to end their confinement. As Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch stated, “Many people are in the camps not because they have no other place to go, they are in the camps because the government doesn’t allow them to leave.” In addition, the Times of London is now reporting that senior aid officials believe 1,400 people are dying every week in the largest of these camps, Manik Farm. Despite the dire situation on the ground, Sri Lanka recently ordered the Red Cross, one of the few non-partisan witnesses in the camps, to scale down its operations. Even the youngest in these camps are not immune from the poor conditions. UN officials have recently said malnutrition among camp children remains a serious problem.

Amnesty International has reports of detainees facing “enforced disappearance, extrajudicial executions, torture, and other ill-treatment, forced recruitment by paramilitary groups and sexual violence.” Overcrowding and water shortages also plague the camps where communicable disease is a problem.