Patronus Analytical

A Thoughtful, Analytical Approach to NGO Security

Aid workers killed in Sri Lanka

14/05/09 12:32 Filed in: Security Incident

On 13 May, Red Cross worker Majurin Sivakurunathan was killed in the crossfire alongside his mother according to an ICRC spokeswoman speaking to CNN. On 8 May an unnamed Sri Lankan aid worker with Caritas Australia was killed during a government artillery attack on the “No Fire Zone” in the Vanni region of Sri Lanka. Two more good people wasted in a country that can ill afford it.

Personal note: I find in very hard to write about the self induced disaster in Sri Lanka. The slow, painful, and seemingly inexorable slide from humanitarian situation to humanitarian catastrophe and my part in it eats at me. It’s not like the future wasn’t obvious even two or three years ago. Yet somehow, once again, we have failed to prevent a problem from becoming disaster. As a friend recently put it “it makes me feel dirty and ashamed to have been part of a process that was complicit in this f....g disgrace”.

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