UN says children in Sri Lanka's displaced camps malnourished

Sri Lanka, Jun 26, 2009

A senior UN official said Friday (June 26) that the high rate of malnutrition reported among displaced people in Sri Lanka's northern regions is a cause for concern, the BBC reported. According to the BBC, the UN's special representative on children and armed conflict said that the government should set up special feeding programs. "The malnutrition rates are very high, especially among young children, and [there is a] need for special feeding programs and all those kind of things in the camps for the children.  So, our sense is that the sooner they can get back to normalcy, to education, to schools, it is the best thing," the BBC quoted Radhika Coomaraswamy, the special representative, as saying. She said that the UN hoped to send a delegation to advise the government on a range of issues relating to child welfare. Coomaraswamy also said that a UN delegation would also provide advice on how to treat former child soldiers, as well as the plight of children separated from their families, the BBC reported. Up to 300,000 people are staying in displaced camps in northern Vavuniya district after they fled fighting during the final phase of Sri Lanka's civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in May. According to the BBC, Coomaraswamy's comments come after Sri Lankan charity Sarvodaya had said at least 5,000 children in the camps were malnourished. The chief executive of Sarvodaya, Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, said earlier this week that malnutrition was a result of people fleeing from place to place without having a proper meal, the BBC reported. He said that the Sri Lankan Health Ministry was working with his group and other aid agencies to tackle the problem.