Through Devastation with the Relief Convoy ; Travelling On Runined Roads and Cutting Through Red Tape, Aid Agencies Bring Food and Water to the Flood Survivors

Summary

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THIS is the end of the aid pipeline, the last link in the long chain from the hearts and wallets of the British public to the mouths and stomachs of Sri Lanka's tsunami victims. In this part of the world, the Pounds 72million-plus donated, the television appeals with David Dimbleby and the floods of donations to the Oxfam shops all come down to a line of sweating Sri Lankan university students, handing out food parcels with bits of packing tape stuck to their clothes.

We are at a rather flashy Buddhist temple near the town of Weligama, temporary refuge to dozens of families who have lost their homes. Teenage trainee monks, in their orange and red robes, cluster round this morning as Save the Children, a leading member of the Disasters Emergency Committee, gives out its first major assistance in this horribly stricken town on Sri Lanka's destroyed southern coast.

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Extract

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Through Devastation with the Relief Convoy ; Travelling On Runined Roads and Cutting Through Red Tape, Aid Agencies Bring Food and Water to the Flood Survivors

The distribution is orderly. Clutching their ration cards, the people line up to have their names ticked off a list before they are given three days' supplies of soya beans, biscuits, tea and canned mackerel in a green plastic bag.

TV pictures may show scrums of people fighting round lorries and...

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