Kuala Lumpur, May 10 (Inditop) Malaysia has set up four health posts in Vavuniya in northern Sri Lanka for the Tamil civilians who have fled the fierce fighting between the troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
A report from Vavuniya said Mercy, a Malaysian body, has begun running the first mobile unit at Menik Farm in Cheddukulam.
“There is an urgent need for healthcare in these camps. We were invited by the health ministry of Sri Lanka to run these projects in these camps. Our four posts will cater for about 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs).
“We will fully equip these health posts and once completed, local doctors will run the day-to-day operations. We are still raising funds and will soon start our second project in Sri Lanka,” said Elliane Arriany Mustapha, Mercy’s programme officer, Star Online website said.
The four health posts will be manned by Sri Lankan doctors in the high-security camps, where over 150,000 IDPs are now being housed, Mustapha was quoted as saying Sunday by Bernama, the official Malaysian news agency.
Hundreds of civilians, mostly young women with newborn babies queued up in the blistering heat to seek medical help.
The Tamil Tigers led by Velupillai Prabhakaran have been fighting to carve out a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka over the past quarter century.
Like Sri Lanka, Malaysia too has a large community of Tamils who form a bulk of the two million-plus ethnic Indians.
rounak