Children stories cry out to the world
The news about children is always very sensitive and normally it is the tendency of mass media to pay additional attention to such. In the seven days between the 29th Nov to Dec. 5th, out of the humanitarian crises that affected the public life, some incidents of suffering of children within the war zone were highlighted. One such is the news of a five year old child and an adult being killed by a cluster bomb that fell on a refugee camp in Kallaru village in Dharmapuram at 1.45 am on the 29th of November. About 173,010 of the displaced people in Kilinochchi are now living in refugee camps in this area, which belongs to the Kandavalai AGA division. Since people in 2 out of 4 AGA divisions in the dist and half of another division have been displaced, the dist secretariat that runs all administrative matters of the area has been setup temporarily in Dharmapuram area, which is about 5 kms from the Kallar village which was hit by the cluster bomb.
One Tamil newspaper on Sunday and all three Tamil newspapers other than the govt paper on Monday carried out the news that a child and three others died of a cluster bomb on Saturday early morning, along with pictures. These reports revealed that three people have died out of which two had been identified, and 20 odd others, including seven children and seven women, had been injured. The Tamil net web site also carried pictures of the child’s body along with pictures of the wounded being taken to hospitals and some pieces of the cluster bomb. In addition these newspapers also carried out the news about signing of the Cluster Bomb banning treaty that actually increased the news worthiness of this attack. According to information of GA of Kilinochchi N. Vedanayagam, he has said that he cannot definitely say whether this was a cluster bomb or not as he is not an expert on the subject, but confirmed the death of a child and an adult and 21 others including women and children have been injured. The child thus killed was five year old Sudarshan Sivakumar and adult is Raman Ramasami aged 80. Among the wounded there wars even children below the age of 16. Information from the area also said that since people ran away from the place when the bomb fell, the damage was less.
During this week Tamil, Sinhala and English newspapers as well were monitored and the total was 83. 79,516 centimeters were allocated for humanitarian news. But for this particular story the space allocated was just 2,976 centimeters. In this amount however, the news regarding the signing of the anti-Cluster bomb treaty in Oslo, and agitations held in Oslo and Norway against this cluster bomb attack, were also included. Out of it 2,811 centimeters were used by Tamil newspapers including 13 pictures. Daily Mirror English daily had news in the front page with a graphic presentation of the damage that can be caused by cluster bombs, which took up 165 centimeters. It also had a statement made by Minister Keheliya Rambukwella saying that Sri Lanka does not have to sign the anti-cluster bomb treaty as it is not using such in warfare. But this news however was not carried in the Sinhala newspapers.
Another news that belonged to the humanitarian framework was the demise of a six year old girl named Arulanantham Nirojini in an artillery shell attack. She was caught in this attack on the 1st of Dec 2008 and 11.45 am while she was coming home from the Vaddakkachchi school in Iranamadu, which was closed early due to the situation. It is said that this happened in an attack made at the kanakapuram area near Kilinochchi. However this tragedy that comes under the category of man made disasters, was given just 298 sq. centimeters and belonged to three Tamil newspapers. The total space given to these two news items was 2976 centimeters.
All thee mediums gave 7,734 sq centimeters for the news relating to the distribution of Indian aid but the non-availability of child milk food in the food package of the Indians, or the packets sent by the govt before, was not noted by the media. Ravaya however wrote a news article of this shortfall. The breast feeding mothers, who are being constantly displaced and also being hit by floods are going through severe mental agony and in such a situation breast feeding cannot even be thought of. Vardhan Prema, a 27 year old mother who managed to get a portion of the Indian aid distributed in Kilinochchi on Dec 5th, made a statement to Tamilnet clarifying the tragedy of children and breast feeding mothers. The covering up of news in a war torn area happens all the time. In such a situation it is the revelations made by the Media overcoming these challenges that actually helps the lives of people.
Original article in Sinhala available here.
