Civilians in Mosul Face ‘Impossible Choice’

BY PAUL MCLEARY, DAN DE LUCE-OCTOBER 20, 2016

Iraq’s military offensive to recapture the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State threatens to trigger a large-scale humanitarian crisis loaded with sectarian danger, with hundreds of thousands of civilians torn between remaining in a booby-trapped warren or running the gauntlet of Iranian-backed Shiite militias potentially blocking their way to safety west of the city.

The campaign by Iraqi security forces to push the Islamic State out of Mosul marks a decisive point in the two-year war against the Islamic State, which has been backed by U.S.-led air power and teams of American special operation forces. But as the battle gets underway in earnest, all eyes are on the fate of the mostly Sunni civilian population in Iraq’s second-largest city, who have already suffered more than two years of brutal occupation by Islamic State militants.

Even before the military operation was announced by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Monday, thousands of families had braved minefields and dodged Islamic State checkpoints to try to escape to Kurdish territory southeast of the city over the past several months in anticipation of the Iraqi Army offensive.

Both the Islamic State and the government in Baghdad are desperately trying to sway civilians. Reports from the city tell of Islamic State extremists rounding up civilians to act as human shields while killing those it suspects of communicating with the outside world or trying to leave. At the same time, American B-52 bombers have been dropping leaflets over Mosul for days, warning residents to stay put and remain indoors when the Iraqi Army enters the city and to stay away from known Islamic State positions.

U.N. officials have warned that as many as 1.5 million people in Mosul will be at risk of being targeted, caught in a crossfire, forcibly expelled, or used as human shields during the fighting.

The refugees “face an impossible choice — if they try to escape the city, there are snipers, there are landmines. It’s extremely dangerous,” said Alun McDonald, a spokesman for Save the Children, an aid group. “If they stay, they risk being caught in the crossfire and the bombing.”

The military campaign to take back Mosul picked up steam Thursday as Iraqi special forces and Kurdish Peshmerga launched operations on a new front to the north and east of the city, pushing to within several miles of its edges. The joint operation marked the closest coordination between Baghdad and Kurdish forces to date.

Even as fighting spread, some civilians in Mosul and surrounding villages are taking to the roads despite the manifold dangers. Since Monday, more than 5,500 people have fled the fighting, according to the International Organization for Migration. At the Dibaga refugee camp near Makhmur, in northern Iraq, more than 27,000 displaced Iraqis have already crowded in, and 600 more arrived Wednesday.
 Thousands more have fled into war-torn northeastern Syria in the past several days.

In Dibaga, seemingly endless rows of tents and prefabricated structures house the civilians, but most of the new arrivals are staying in what was once the camp’s school. Families sleep on mats in the hallway, surrounded by garbage. A long line of people waiting for food wraps around the courtyard.

“We are at capacity,” Ahmad Abdo, the camp manager, told Foreign Policy. “And we are expecting more and more people to come here.”

More than 150 families have been arriving at the camp each day. Aid groups are constructing a new camp nearby, but that will only hold a few thousand more people.

Razla Ali arrived in Dibaga on Wednesday morning after making the overnight trek with her four children. Just after sunset the night before, they sneaked out of their village, Halawah, and followed a group of other escapees for seven hours through the dark hills.

“When we saw the ISIS cars, we hid,” Ali said, referring to the Islamic State. “There were landmines on the path.”

Clad in a simple black dress, Ali sat on the wet floor, rocking her infant daughter. Her two other small children clung to her knees. Her 15-year-old son, she said, had been taken by Kurdish security forces for questioning; all men who arrive in Kurdish-controlled territory are investigated for possible ties to or cooperation with the Islamic State.

The few belongings the family was able to bring, mostly children’s clothes, sat next to her in two plastic bags. This was now their home.

Ali and her children are among the more than 3.3 million internally displaced people in Iraq, as well as tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. Nearly a million people have sought refuge in the more stable Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, straining the regional Kurdish government — which is cash-strapped due to low oil prices and a fiscal fight with Baghdad — and overwhelming humanitarian organizations.

But refugees looking for another place to flee may face a new danger.Baghdad plans to dispatch its troublesome Iranian-backed Shiite militias to the west of Mosul, both to block the path of fleeing Islamic State fighters seeking refuge in Syria and to take over the Islamic State-held city of Tal Afar. But the deployment would throw another potentially deadly obstacle in the path of Sunni refugees seeking to avoid the fighting south and east of the city and who are terrified of the Shiite militias’ reputation for abusing Sunni civilians.

The militias — numbering about 20,000 strong — are collectively known as the Popular Mobilization Units, or PMUs. They have a well-documented history of gross human rights violations; during the fight for Fallujah this year, militias abducted and killed dozens of Sunni men fleeing the fighting. The international outcry led the Shiite-led government in Baghdad to promise that the militias would not enter the predominantly Sunni city of Mosul.

The PMUs — and their Iranian Quds Force advisors — have stayed out of the fighting around Mosul thus far. But on Tuesday their leadership pledged on Facebook that they’re planning two operations: “The first in #Talafer and the second in support to the the [sic] troops heading towards the centre of Mosul.”
Speaking to reporters at the Defense Department, Army Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, said Wednesday that no U.S. advisors on the ground or airstrikes will support militias that are not part of the Iraqi government and that are “made up of multiple groups, some of which are recognized terrorist organizations.”

But those militias are preparing to place themselves directly in the path ofthousands of civilians heading for the Hol refugee camp in northeastern Syria. Already about 5,000 people have reached the camp from the Mosul area after trekking through Islamic State-held territory over the past 10 days, with at least another 1,000 waiting at the border to cross, according to Save the Children. The United Nations has warned that as many as 100,000 people may arrive in Syria from around Mosul.

Staffers from the aid group who have visited the Hol camp describe a desperate situation, with families being forced to live amid piles of garbage and human waste, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks. There are only 16 working latrines to be shared by the 9,000 people at the camp, all fleeing the fighting in Syria and Iraq.

The United States has tried to prepare for what it expects will be an avalanche of refugees. Last month, Washington said it would provide more than $181 million in additional humanitarian assistance to aid groups and Iraqi authorities in anticipation of the planned military operation in Mosul.

“Part of what makes this response so challenging is that it’s an incredibly isolated community and we have so little knowledge of what conditions are like in the city,” said a State Department official who helps oversee humanitarian efforts.

It was hard enough for aid agencies to plan for the recapture of Fallujah in June, when they “knew 80,000 people would be displaced and where they would go,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told FP.

But international aid agencies are not sure how many people still live in Mosul, how many will decide to flee, and in which direction they will move, the official said.

At the Dibaga camp, Ali said it wasn’t just the threat of airstrikes and the looming battle between Islamic State and Iraqi forces that pushed her tobrave beatings, snipers, and landmines to flee her village.
“I don’t have milk to feed her,” she said, cradling her underweight 5-month-old daughter. “I didn’t have enough to eat, so I’m not producing milk for her.”

Another woman nearby held her own infant, an IV in her tiny arm. “She didn’t eat for four days,” the mother said.

Rebecca Collard contributed to this article with reporting from the Dibaga camp in Iraq.

Photo credit: NOE FALK NIELSEN/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Donald Trump accused of sexual misconduct by 10th woman

Karena Virginia appears alongside lawyer Gloria Allred to describe incident involving Trump in 1998, when she says he touched her breast

Tenth Trump accuser Karena Virginia says: ‘My shock turned to shame’

Molly Redden in New York-Thursday 20 October 2016

A 10th woman accused Donald Trump of unwanted sexual contact on Thursday morning, just hours after the presidential candidate angrily renewed his denials of ever having inappropriate contact with women.

Karena Virginia claims that Trump groped her breast and made sexual comments toward her at a random encounter outside the 1998 US Open tennis tournament in Flushing, Queens. Virginia was 27 at the time. The two had never previously met, she said.

“I was waiting for a car to arrive to take me home,” she said, flanked by famous women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, and facing a battery of clacking cameras.

As she was waiting, she claimed, Trump approached her with a small group of other men. “I was surprised when I overheard him talking to the other men about me. He said: ‘Hey, look at this one, we haven’t seen her before. Look at those legs,’ as though I were an object rather than a person.

“He then walked up to me and reached out his right arm and grabbed my right arm,” she continued. “Then his hand touched the right side of my breast. I was in shock. I flinched. ‘Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?’ – that’s what he said to me. I felt intimidated and I felt powerless. When my car pulled up and I got in, after I closed the door, my shock turned to shame.”

Virginia, who described herself on Thursday as a yoga instructor and life coach from the tri-state area, spoke in a midtown Manhattan hotel conference room just blocks away from Trump Tower. It was less than one week after Allred held a press conference with another Trump accuser.

“Her allegations demonstrate how Mr Trump selects his victims at random,” Allred said.

Within hours, the Trump campaign released an acid response, claiming Virginia’s press conference was the work of the Clinton campaign.

“Discredited political operative Gloria Allred, in another coordinated, publicity-seeking attack with the Clinton campaign, will stop at nothing to smear Mr Trump,” said Jessica Ditto, the campaign’s deputy communications director. “Give me a break. Voters are tired of these circus-like antics and reject these fictional stories and the clear efforts to benefit Hillary Clinton.”

On Thursday, Allred disclosed, not for the first time, that she is an avowed supported of Clinton and served as an elected delegate at this summer’s Democratic national convention. Allred denied that she had had contact with anyone inside the Clinton campaign regarding Virginia’s claims.

Asked if Allred and Virginia could produce eyewitnesses of the event, Allred replied that Virginia had told her husband and several friends about the alleged encounter soon after it occurred.

Virginia is the 10th woman to publicly accuse Trump of inappropriate sexual contact – the seventh since a 2005 tape revealed Trump bragging that his fame allowed him to grope and kiss women without their consent. In the second presidential debate, just days after the tape was published by the Washington Post, Trump denied that he ever acted on his words. He dismissed it as “locker-room talk”. Several of his accusers have said his denials are what spurred them to go public.

The tape and the accusers have roiled the presidential election in its critical final weeks. And it has sent some members of Trump’s party scrambling to create distance from the candidate.

Trump, meanwhile, has vehemently denied the accusations. At a recent rally, he suggested the women accusing him were not attractive enough to draw his attention. “Look at her,” Trump said, referring to a People magazine reporter whoclaimed Trump had pushed her against a wall and kissed her. “I don’t think so.”

Ten women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct

On Wednesday night, in the final presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump suggested that the rush of accusations was either orchestrated by the Clinton campaign or the product of women seeking “10 minutes of fame”. He had previously called his accusers “horrible, horrible liars”.

“Those stories are all totally false, I have to say that,” Trump said. “And I didn’t even apologize to my wife who is sitting right here because I didn’t do anything … Nobody has more respect for women than me.”

Virginia on Thursday said she was motived to make her claims in public out of support for the other women whom Trump had called liars.

“I have lost sleep over this,” said Virginia, holding down a sob. “I have been fearful about bringing unwanted attention to me and my loving family, which includes my husband, my daughter and my son. But in the end, I feel that it is my duty as a woman, a mother, a human being and an American citizen to speak out and tell the truth about what happened to me.

“Mr Trump,” she continued, “your random moment of sexual pleasure came at my expense and affected me greatly.”

Virginia described feeling shame about the alleged encounter and blaming herself for wearing a short dress and heels – an outfit she avoided for years afterwards “so as not to attract unwanted attention”.

Virginia claimed that she met Trump one more time, about five years ago, at a business event. “He looked me up and down a few times in a lecherous manner. This time, mixed in with the feelings of shame, I felt disgust toward him. I had come to the realization that I was the victim and he had violated me.”

“She has shown tremendous courage in coming forward today, especially in light of Mr Trump’s statements last night in which he called the allegations of the nine women who alleged inappropriate sexual conduct by him ‘lies and fiction’,” Allred said.

“Mr Trump, you may have thought that you could violate women without consequences. But there are always consequences. There are consequences for the women that you have hurt and there are consequences for you as well.”

Besides Virginia, nine other women have accused Trump, publicly and using their full names, of harassing them or touching them without their consent. A few, such as Jill Harth, who claimed in a 1997 lawsuit Trump tried to sexually assault her, made their claims long before the Washington Post published the infamous tape.

Others came forward just days after the revelation of the tape and Trump’s subsequent denials. Jessica Leeds claimed in a New York Times article that Trump groped her on a plane while the two were seated next to each other. In the same article, Rachel Crooks, who worked in Trump Tower as a secretary, alleged that Trump would not let go of her hand after she introduced herself, and began kissing her. The two were in an elevator, she claimed.

Virginia is the second woman to tell her story with the assistance of Allred. Last week, Allred held a similar press conference with Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice who claimed that Trump used a meeting about a job opportunity as a pretense to grope her and make sexual advances. Neither woman has announced plans to take legal action against Trump

Cambodia: Over 80 schoolkids hospitalised in mass food poisoning incident

20th October 2016 

MORE than 80 schoolchildren in Cambodia have fallen ill after eating contaminated food distributed by a local volunteer group, officials said.

The primary school students in the southern province of Takeo became sick Tuesday after eating fried rice, sausage and milk.

Chea Vann, the governor of Tram Kak district, where the incident took place, told police that all the victims had the same symptoms of diarrhea and vomiting.

He said Wednesday that the children have been sent to hospitals, and that all were in stable condition.

Such mass outbreaks of food poisoning are not uncommon in Cambodia, where checks on food are rare and safety regulations lax.

SEE ALSO: School lunch link to Japan food poisoning outbreak
Xinhua news agency quoted Tram Kak district deputy police chief Sok Sochea as saying that the children fell sick about four hours after they ate the contaminated food.

“They all have the same symptoms: vomiting and diarrhea,” he said, adding the children were rushed to hospital shortly after reporting their symptoms.

The provincial food safety bureau, he said, were sent samples of the tainted fried rice for examination.

According to the police officer, a group of students from a school in Phnom Penh had distributed the contaminated food to the schoolchildren in Wat Tatai primary school.

The group has since paid a visit to the food poisoning victims in the hospital where they are in stable condition. They reportedly offered well-wishes and handed out cash donations.

Last year, some 37 Buddhist monks fell ill in southeastern Kampong Cham province after eating tainted food, leading to a health ministry circular urging the public to be cautious with food hygiene to avoid illnesses.

Additional reporting from the Associated Press

Tasmanian devil milk fights superbugs

18 October 2016

Milk from Tasmanian devils could offer up a useful weapon against antibiotic-resistant superbugs, according to Australian researchers.

The marsupial's milk contains important peptides that appear to be able to kill hard-to-treat infections, including MRSA, say the Sydney University team.

Experts believe devils evolved this cocktail to help their young grow stronger.

The scientists are looking to make new treatments that mimic the peptides.

They have scanned the devil's genetic code to find and recreate the infection-fighting compounds, called cathelicidins.

PhD student Emma Peel, who worked on the research which is published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, said they had found six important peptides.

These appear to be similar to peptides in the milk of other marsupials, which means these animals are worth studying too.

"Tammar wallabies have eight of these peptides and opossums have 12," she said, adding that studies into koala's milk had now started.

Dirty devils

Experts believe marsupials are good to study because their babies have to thrive in a relatively dirty environment.

Tasmanian devil mothers give birth after only a few weeks of pregnancy. The tiny offspring then spend the next four months maturing in their mother's pouch.

The Sydney team recreated the six devil peptides that they found and tested them on 25 types of bacteria and six types of fungi.

One of the synthetic peptides - Saha-CATH5 - appeared to be particularly effective at killing the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.

MRSA

Image copyrightL

Many people carry MRSA on their skin and inside the nose and throat.

Most of the time, the infection is harmless.

But if it enters the body through an open wound for example, it may cause problems, which is why people staying in hospital are at a higher risk.

MRSA is treatable, but only with a combination of antibiotics that can get round the resistance problem.

It also appeared to kill another resistant bug, called Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus, as well as fungi, called Candida, which are commonly involved in skin infections.

Experts agree that we urgently need new drugs to fight treatment-resistant infections.

A recent review warned that by 2050, superbugs could kill one person every three seconds across the world unless urgent action was taken.

Dr Richard Stabler, Associate Professor in Molecular Bacteriology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "We need to do this hunting in unusual places for new antibiotics. People are beginning to explore and find new molecules."

REPORT: MILITARIZATION THREATENS LIVELIHOOD OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES IN JAFFNA

19/10/2016

The Society for Threatened Peoples Switzerland (STP) published today together with their Sri Lankan partners National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (NAFSO) their report “Under the Military´s Shadow – Local Communities and Militarization on the Jaffna Peninsula”. The report indicates that the military on the Jaffna Peninsula in the North of Sri Lanka is systematically violating the human rights even seven years after the end of the war. The military grabbed land unlawfully and denied the access to sea and land for local farmers and fishers. Several Thousands still live in “Internally Displaced People” (IDP) camps where the standard of living is not adequate for families. The STP recommends that the “Government of Sri Lanka” (GoSL) returns the occupied land to their traditional owners.

STP and NAFSO reviewed the impact of the militarization on the local population on the Jaffna Peninsula. The region remains highly-militarized. The military presence has not reduced since the end of the war. The military surveils, intimidates and harasses the local population, activists and NGO staff. Over 25 years ago, the military occupied large areas of land. Consequently, the former inhabitants lost their access to land and sea. The Ocean Grabbing of the military has destroyed the livelihood of the former inhabitants. Furthermore, the commercial activities of the military, like tourism and agriculture, deprive local communities of an important income source.

Situation in IDP Camps and the resettlement process

Even though the war ended seven years ago, tens of thousands of people are still internally displaced on the Jaffna Peninsula. Several thousand of them continue to live in IDP Camps, where the precarious living conditions are not adequate for families, particularly women-headed families. Currently the GoSL is releasing some areas of occupied land. Some parts will, however, remain occupied. The government is resettling IDPs on the released land. Some of the IDPs were resettled on their traditional land where fishing and farming is possible. The other resettlement areas, where people were resettled without their consent, are mostly unsuitable for agriculture and fishing. Therefore, they cannot develop their traditional livelihood.

Demilitarize the Jaffna Peninsula

The STP and NAFSO urge the GoSL to reduce the military presence, to cease the surveillance of local population and order the military to end all of their commercial activities. Furthermore, the government is urged to release all occupied areas to their traditional owners and consult the IDPs on the resettlement process. The STP and NAFSO also recommend that the government support resettling IDPs to develop their traditional livelihood and provide them with sufficient basic facilities such as drinking water, electricity and sanitary facilities and ensure access to schools and health facilities. For women-headed households in particular, an adequate standard of living free from hunger and malnutrition needs to be ensured by the government.

Download-Link Report “Under Military´s Shadow”: http://oceangrabbing.ch/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/10/Bericht_JaffnaFINAL_low.pdf

Bericht_JaffnaFINAL_low.pdf by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

January 8: The promise and the pain

 Thursday, 20 October 2016

When Maithripala Sirisena decided to contest against Mahinda Rajapaksa in the January 2015 presidential poll, he took his life in his hands. He was not the only one, but as Rajapaksa’s direct challenger, Sirisena would be most-hated, and therefore, most at risk.

With the fate of Rajapaksa’s last challenger still fresh in Opposition memory, precautions were taken to protect the ‘Common Candidate’ from instantaneous reprisals the morning after the election, should the results favour the incumbent. Opposition strategists believed that the few hours the Rajapaksa regime would be forced to spend locating the common candidate could mean the difference between life and death for Sirisena. So once he had cast his vote in Polonnaruwa on 8 January 2015, Maithripala Sirisena and his family went into hiding for the night, in a remote coconut estate in Kurunegala. To conceal the movement of the future first family, the small convoy of vehicles carrying the Opposition candidate moved into the property under the cover of darkness.

January 8 The promise and the pain.docx by Thavam Ratna on Scribd

The Fraught Road To Justice: Sri Lankan Victims Of Sexual Violence

By Kirsty Anantharajah –October 20, 2016

Kirsty Anantharajah

International and domestic studies, articles and reports in Sri Lanka are steadily illuminating the extent of sexual violence committed against women (and men) in the context of the war and times of ‘peace’. Justice and accountability for these harms, however, remain noticeably absent. Apart from a handful of cases, impunity forms the dominant landscape of Sri Lankan women’s experience with seeking redress for sexual violence. Hope for any relief from this current state of injustice and inaction will depend on the re-establishment of the Rule of Law; yet the numerous loci of impunity within the justice system makes this a particularly challenging task.

Institutional cultures of custodial rape and torture

In 2001, Sivamany Sinnathamby and Wijikala Nanthakumar, were arrested in their Mannar homes by navy officials and members of the Police Special Investigation Unit. They were arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and the Emergency Regulations, and were taken to the office of the Counter-Subversive Unit. The two women were brutally raped and tortured in custody: The torture continued until the women signed confessions in Sinhalese, (falsely) affirming that they were members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who had carried bombs to Mannar. When Sivamany and Wijikala were initially examined by the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) in Mannar, no evidence of rape was reported. This outcome led to a significant community outcry and the women were re-examined by the Colombo JMO; the results of this examination showed strong signs of rape. One rationale for the initial finding at the office of the Mannar JMO, is that the women, following intimidation, did not actually allow any medical examination to occur. If community pressure did not result in a second examination, the women’s case would lack the essential medical evidence upon which successful prosecution rests. Three police officers and nine navy personnel were later identified as perpetrators.

Following the police complaint made by Sivamany and Wijikala, a campaign of intimidation by the perpetrators and their associates spread beyond the victim-witnesses to the women’s community. The Tamil Guardian notes that the Mannar Citizens’ Committee, vocal supporters of the women’s search for accountability, began receiving daily calls threatening to murder all the members of the committee at the conclusion of the trial. The journalist who first reported the detention and rape of the Mannar women, was detained, interrogated and harassed by army personnel. Members of the armed forces also threatened Wijikala’s mother.

Read More

Journalists in Jaffna protest for investigations into journalist deaths and media freedom

19 Oct  2016

Journalists, media workers and their supporters gathered in Jaffna today on the anniversary of the death of journalist Nimalarajan to demand investigations into murdered journalists in Sri Lanka, media freedom and immediate implementation of the Right to Information Act, as Sri lankan police officers watched on.

First gathering at a monument dedicated to slain journalists in Sri Lanka erected last year by the Jaffna Press Club, the group had a moment of silence to pay their respects to Nimalarajan and all the other journalists who were killed during and after the war.

In a statement released on Wednesday, marking 16 years since the death of Nimalarajan, the JPC called for an "urgent investigation with the involvement of international media organisations into the massacre and disappearance of media workers and journalists".

"This government, which portrays itself as that of ‘good governance’, is attempting to show that it has begun investigating the killing of media workers by announcing investigations into the death and disappearance of our colleagues in the South, Lasantha Wickrematunge and Prageeth Eknaligoda. However, as even these investigations waver this government is not yet prepared to announce even a nominal investigation into the killing of Tamil journalists and media workers," the JPC added. 

See full statement here. 

Members of the TNPF, NPC and Marxism-Leninism party joined the protest, alongside more than 100 journalists from the North-East and Colombo.

Protestors expressed frustration and anger with the lack of attention that has been paid to journalists from the North-East who were killed during and after the war. Chanting the names of Sivaram, Nimalarajan, Nadesan and Ravivarman, protestors asked for investigations aided by international media organizations into their deaths. "Is there one kind of justice for the North and a different kind for the South?" the group chanted.

A few Southern Sinhalese media workers also came to show solidarity with the protest and add to the demand for investigations of deaths of journalists across the country.

At least three CID officers were spotted monitoring the protest from market stalls next to the Jaffna bus stand.

A selfie during protest

2016-10-19 16:

The External Graduates Union and the National Students Collective today launched a protest march towards the University Grants Commission from the Vihara Maha Devi Park urging the authorities to protect the external degree programme offered by the state universities. The students are seen taking selfies during the protest march. (Pix by Nisal Baduge)

Rights Activists demand justice for Film Makers Prasanna’s right to expression

- Oct 19, 2016

Right activities including artists staged a protest in front of Fort Court today at 9.30 a.m. and demand the Court to respect the Prasanna Vithanage’s right to expression

Over 50 activists participated for the event by holding placards and banners

Monitoring the Ongoing Drought in Sri Lanka

Authors are from the Foundation for Environment, Climate and Technology, Kandy

Featured image courtesy Amantha Perera for IRINNews

PRABODHA AGALAWATTE ZEENAS YAHIYA AND LAREEF ZUBAIR on 10/18/2016

Drought has followed the floods in mid-May in Sri Lanka, affecting 625,000 people directly along with agriculture, water supply, irrigation and nature. Here, we quantify this drought and show that it (a) is most severe in the Eastern and North-Central Provinces; (b) was due to markedly low rainfall after May, (c) has reached the intensity of the initial phase of the last major drought of 2013 and (d) shall likely not be sustained for as long.

Which areas are most affected?

According to the Disaster Management Center, 625,000 people were affected by the drought by 13th October 2016. Out of this 45% were from north-central and eastern provinces. 130,000 people (30% of the district’s population) were affected by drought in Polonnaruwa district (Figure ) along with large numbers in Batticaloa, Ampara, Moneragala, Hambantota, Kalutara, Puttalam and Kilinochchi districts. About 13% of the populations in Kilinochchi and Batticaloa districts were affected.

Figure 1: The number of affected people (left) and the percentage of affected people (right)

Impact on Water Storage

Notwithstanding the heavy May rainfall in the headstream areas of Mahaweli, Kelani, Kalu, Walawe, and Deduru Rivers, the reservoirs have been depleted more than is typical and below is a summary of storage in reservoirs used exclusively for Irrigation and in addition for hydropower.

Irrigation Reservoir Storage

Most of the major reservoirs are filled to less than 50% of their respective capacities in mid-October. Water levels of many reservoirs have gone down significantly. The storage in most reservoirs in Ampara, Trincomalee, Moneragala, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts has fallen below 35% of their capacity while storage in reservoirs in Batticaloa and Mannar districts have fallen below 20% and 10% respectively.

Reservoirs in the Head Stream and Hydropower Generation

Hydro-electricity reservoir storage capacity was at 86% at the beginning of 2016 and decreased steadily to 34% by April. Heavy rains in May filled up the reservoirs back up to 76%. By early-October, the capacity has once again come down to 51% (PUCSL). The contribution of CEB hydro power plants in May 2016 had been 33% of the total generation. This has come down to 15% in September 2016.

This Yala’s Climate

In the months leading into the Yala (April to September), rainfall was less than that in 4 out of 5 previous years (Figure 2). Then in mid-May heavy rainfall was received by the entire country and then relatively dry weather prevailed throughout the country until mid-October.

Figure 2: Average rainfall for Sri Lanka from January to October 2016 (black) and those in previous 5 years for January to December. The rainfall estimates are from satellites which compare closely with ground observations.

The rainfall deficit was made worse, as the temperature was at record levels this year, leading to a big rise in evaporation.

Measuring and Monitoring Drought

We have shown that the Weighted Anomaly Standardized Precipitation (WASP) Index is able to capture drought in Sri Lanka at fine-scale as represented by relief payments between 1960 and 2000 (Zubair et al., 2006, Lyon et al., 2009). The WASP index takes the deficits in each month as a ration of the rainfall that is expected in that month while giving higher value to more recent rainfall – given the rainfall seasonality of Sri Lanka, we find a three month WASP index to be best.

Figure 3: Drought estimates using the 3-month WASP index for (Left) January – March, Middle (April-June) and Right (July to September) of 2016. Note that if the WASP index is between -1 and -2 it is defined as “moderately dry”, and between -2 and -3 is “very dry” and if the index is below -3 such areas are “extremely dry”. We know from previous work that the satellite rainfall data used here is skillful for Sri Lanka.

As seen in the maps of WASP indices in figure 3, conditions had been slightly dry in northern, north-western and south-western regions in the first quarter. In the second quarter, these dry conditions were mitigated by heavy rainfall in May. However, the rainfall deficits that began in June kicked in and extreme drought became established in the following months.

Polonnaruwa is the worst affected district. The monthly WASP index for Polonnaruwa (figure 4) shows that July-September 2016 drought conditions have been the fourth worst in the last 15 years. This figure also shows that the most sustained and severe drought over the last 15 years was the one in 2013-2014 and the present drought while severe is not as sustained yet.

Figure 4: The monthly WASP drought index for the Polonnaruwa district since 2001

Role of El Nino

From May 2015 El Niño conditions persisted for almost a year until May 2016. El Niño condition was one of the contributors to suppressed rainfall and record temperature until April and to the May deluges. Although there has been a transition to a La Niña now, in the intervening period rain was suppressed and temperature was higher in a manner reminiscent of an El Niño.

What is likely to follow?

Usually the period from October to December have the heaviest rainfall in Sri Lanka. Even though La Nina conditions typically lead to lower rainfall from October to December, there should still be relief from the drought as these are wet months even with a La Nina. Questions remain as to (a) how soon the rains shall arrive, (b) whether the magnitude of rainfall shall be sufficient for the Maha cultivation, water supply needs and hydroelectricity demands and (c) whether there shall be sufficient carryover storage to take care of the dry season after January. On this shall ride the health and welfare of humans, their livelihoods, the economy, and ecosystems in Sri Lanka.

Note: The Foundation for Environment, Climate and Technology (http://www.climate.lk ) provides an update every Friday for those managing national water resources which we also make available freely via http://fectsl.blogspot.com and http://www.twitter.com/fectlk and our e-mailing list at http://www.climate.lk/subscribe.html .  

Reference

Lyon, B., Zubair, L., Ralapanawe, V. & Yahiya, Z., (2009). Finescale evaluation of drought in a tropical setting: case study in Sri Lanka. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 48(1), pp. 77-88.

Zubair, L., V. Ralapanawe, U. Tennakone, Z. Yahiya, and R. Perera (2006), Natural disaster risks in Sri Lanka: Mapping hazards and risk hotspots, Chapter 4, in Natural Disaster Hotspots Case Studies, Washington, DC: World Bank 2006.

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