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| Sunday, 02 April 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The silent cry by Umangi de Mel
Children, the victims of economic inequalities having also to suffer the beatings of war and they are the most unfortunate segment of the society. Denied of their human rights thus frequently abused as the most vulnerable category of their kind, the refugee children suffer from a double jeopardy. A large number of children in Sri Lanka suffer immensely from both natural and man made disasters such as the civil war and the deadly Tsunami, they are condemned to live a grim existence and are also subjected to massive levels of neglect and starvation.
Aching for an iota of warmth and love, the small hearts desperately long for food and comfort as those are things that they seldom come across. Deprived of their fundamental rights some may even spend their whole life in the Internally Displaced Peoples' Camp (IDP) in Northeastern, Sri Lanka. Currently it's estimated by the UNHCR that 324,699 people have been displaced due to the two decades of civil war, while 67,949 are living in welfare centres. Although the Child Protection Authority or UNICEF haven't got an official figure of displaced children living in the IDP Camps, it's estimated that approximately one third of the refugee population at the IDP camps are children.
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| Produced by Lake House |
"If
help and salvation are to come, they can only come from children, for the
children are the makers of men." - Maria Montessori 
