Take urgent steps to help Salawa victims: Malcolm Ranjith

Archbishop His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has appealed the relevant authorities to urgently help the people affected by the explosion in Salawa to get back to their normal way of life.

“I appeal to the President, the Prime Minister, the relevant Ministers and officials to waive off the procedural snags and to urgently help the people to get back to their normal way of life. If for that purpose a top level discussion can be held with the representatives of the affected people, it would be most consoling,” Cardinal Ranjith said in a statement. 

Statement:

By now, over a month has passed since the explosion of the arms storage at Salawa, Kosgama. Residents in the area who were forced to flee only with their clothes on as a result of the tragedy are still in a state of shock and suffering. They have lost everything they toiled for over a life time, their homes, their commercial ventures and everything that belonged to them which have been reduced to rubble and ash. 

All of this has happened accidently and they had no hand in that.  While urgent assistance in the form of food and drink were supplied to them at present they live in makeshift tents. I have personally seen what they are going through. Even though promises have been made by the relevant authorities that their houses and ventures would be re-built very soon, due to red tape and official procedure like filling forms, sending them to different offices for approval, procedures perhaps outlined in the rule books, etc., .these promises are still be to realized. In the meantime people continue to suffer ravages of rain and the sun and an uncertain future.