Food ration crisis in Sri Lanka

Generations of children have known little else but war

The BBC's Frances Harrison in Colombo

It has emerged that up to 700,000 internal refugees in Sri Lanka have been without food rations for more than two months because of rivalry between the country's two main political parties.

The dispute has been over which government department has responsibility and funds to feed the refugees.

The situation has been made worse by the World Food Programme halting its assistance to Sri Lanka because donors were concentrating on Afghanistan.

Sri Lanka has one of the biggest internal refugee populations in the world for its size as a result of two decades of conflict.

No funds

Most of the people who have been displaced by the war still rely on dry food rations for their survival.

Many children have been forced to flee fighting

More than 600,000 people were supplied by a government department that came under the president's office.

But officials there say after last December's elections all funds dried up and rations stopped.

The Essential Services Department, as it is called, says it purchased what food it could on credit to send to the northern Jaffna peninsula.

But now it says it cannot get any more credit because there are too many unpaid bills.

'Sabotage'

Officials there believe the Treasury stopped funding because of the hostility between the President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, and the newly elected United National Party government.

It is still not clear which department is responsible for providing rations

But the Minister of Rehabilitation, Jayalath Jayawardene, has accused the president's office of trying to sabotage the new government by not giving the refugees their rations.

As an emergency measure Dr Jayawardene's ministry has this week ordered rations to be released for the month of January but there is no sign of a long-term plan to feed the refugees.

Indeed it is still not clear which department is responsible for providing rations.

The situation has been further confused by the World Food Programme (WFP) temporarily halting its assistance to an additional 80,000 internally displaced people in Sri lanka because of a lack of funding.

A WFP representative said donors were concentrating on Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka was one of several countries that had lost out as a result.