“I never dreamed we would have our own home again,” says Vadivaperumal Letchumi, putting the finishing touches to her new house, built with support of Caritas Sri Lanka. The 42-year-old widow lives in the north east of the country with her two children. It’s a region emerging from a three decade long civil war that ...
Throughout the world, criminals exploit poor or desperate people. Traffickers offer them jobs that don’t exist and take them from their homes before selling them into unpaid prostitution, beggary, or forced labour.
In early 2009, the 25-year-old conflict between the Tamil rebels and the government of Sri Lanka reached a bloody end. Up to 250,000 people were trapped between the two sides in the final stages of the war. Caritas was one of the few aid agencies given permission to work in the combat zone throughout the ...
Caritas is urging all sides in Sri Lanka’s civil war to end their hostilities immediately to prevent further loss of lives to children and other innocent civilians. The 25-year old conflict has reached a peak in the last year with between 70,000 and 250,000 people displaced in last remaining pocket of fighting in Vanni. Caritas ...
Caritas says innocent civilians are dying in Sri Lanka due to indiscriminate bombing by both the army and rebels with thousands more wounded and suffering. Caritas says the country is facing a humanitarian crisis with at least 250,000 people trapped in the conflict zone in Vanni in the northeast as government forces battle Tamil rebels ...
An earthquake in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004 triggered a tsunami that devastated the coasts of Indonesia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka Some 300,000 people were killed in a matter of hours.
As Caritas Sri Lanka prepares to celebrate its 40th anniversary in December, one theme runs through the festivities and its work over the past few decades: empowerment. Bringing an end to an ongoing civil war and rebuilding lives after the tsunami are just two of the challenges facing the people of Sri Lanka. They are ...
Close to a quarter of a million men, women and children have arrived in camps in the north of Sri Lanka. They’ve fled months of heavy fighting between government and rebel forces, endured a lack of food and medicine, and witnessed unimaginable suffering. Caritas is one of the few international aid agencies with access into ...
Among the many things that people may lose in a war, such as their homes and clothes, there’s also the chance that family members will disappear into the chaos. Tens of thousands of people have been cornered into a rebel-held small strip of land by fighting in northern Sri Lanka. Even though almost 190,000 have ...
The monsoon season will be arriving in Sri Lanka shortly. No one knows how powerful the winds and rains will be, but one thing is certain – it’s best to not be living in a tent when they arrive. Tens of thousands of people are still living in temporary shelters following the end of Sri ...