* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Malini Morzaria works for the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) based in New Delhi, India. She covers Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.
By Malini Morzaria
I was last in Sri Lanka's capital city, Colombo, almost a year after India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated by a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber. 1992 was still a fraught year in Sri Lanka's civil war.
On-going hostilities between the government and the rebels in the north, thousands killed and displaced by the conflict, a naval commander killed by suicide bombers and senior army officials killed in a land mine explosion.
Eighteen years later, there has been a year-long end to the conflict and tens of thousands of people uprooted by the violence are now returning home, but often to fields which are still contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnances (UXOs).
At the peak of the civil conflict in Sri Lanka, which ended last May, 300,000 people were forced to flee and took refuge in camps in the north of the Indian Ocean island. According to the government, 80,000 people still remain in camps and there are still mines and UXOs littered across large swathes of land.
The extent of the contamination remains unknown, but the area affected reaches over 5,000 sq. km in the north -- covering the Vanni and Jaffna peninsula -- where many of the displaced are returning. An estimated 120,000 people have already moved to 12 districts. By October 2010, an estimated 30,000 displaced people will still be in camps.
Nigel Robinson, the Country Manager for Foundation Suisse de Deminage (FSD), says: "We are working closely with the government on the mine clearance. It is painstaking work and requires human and financial resources."
Preliminary surveys have been done across the majority of districts and clearance is currently focused in residential areas, he adds.
DONOR FATIGUE
However, the surrounding fields and forests are still potentially contaminated and also require immediate attention to allow the returnees to plant crops, generate incomes and collect firewood.
But a group of demining NGOs believes they will have to downsize activities by August this year due to the lack of funds.
One year on, humanitarians say there are still concerns over freedom of movement, as well conditions in the camps and for those returning.
"Mid-to-late last year donors and aid agencies were calling for the camps to be opened and for the displaced to go home," a journalist covering the post-conflict humanitarian situation told me.
"The operating conditions were not ideal at the time. However there seems to be comparatively more freedom of movement and less military presence in the camps now."
But an aid worker, who lived in the north, is more skeptical about the real freedom of the displaced living in camps.
"Comparatives can be a measure and there have been small steps of progress by the Sri Lankan authority. But if we are to look at the humanitarian principles under which we operate, there is still work to be done to meet the values of independence, impartiality and dignity."
Others worry about the fact that government and donors seem to want to focus on development rather than emergency aid.
A donor representative said that like many other countries in the world, in Sri Lanka "the humanitarian gets swept under the carpet to make room for development".
"Of course, as a government, when you deny that there is a humanitarian crisis, then you cannot be held accountable for how you treat civilians," he adds.
Many donors have combined humanitarian and development funds with the perception is that since people are going home, they should help rebuild and develop the north as that is what the government is asking for.
SELLING RATIONS
But aid workers say the humanitarian situation for thousands continues to decline.
People are selling rations of food, for cash, and the situation is deteriorating both in the camps and in the return areas.
There are many priorities, they say, such as shelter, demining, food, water, sanitation, access to health care -- life-saving immediate needs which still need to be met even if infrastructure is being rebuilt.
"To think that the humanitarian situation is over because people are moving back home and therefore to assume that the areas are free of mine contamination would be a gross injustice to those who have already suffered terribly in the war," said one relief worker.
Dominique Gassauer of the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) who went on a recent visit to the north has also expressed concern.
"It is clear that there are humanitarian needs and there are vulnerable groups who need assistance in the north of Sri Lanka," she said.
"If there are humanitarian organisations that can work independently and help the most vulnerable people with dignity, irrespective of their religion or ethnic origins, then there could be an opportunity for ECHO to deploy funds."
Gassauer observes that for the thousands of Sri Lankans who have survived the war but who have lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods, the preoccupation a year after then end of hostilities remains: "Where will we live? How will we survive? How will we educate our children?"
