Aid groups and government officials are concerned that orphans are being split among relatives more eager to obtain money promised for tsunami survivors than to care for the children.
Jayashree, just 3 years old, like thousands of other children across Asia, lost her parents in the tsunami.
Now she has been separated from her siblings by a grandmother who picked her up from a relief camp in Nagapattinam, the worst-hit district on the Indian mainland with 5,500 deaths.
Dressed in a crumpled pink dress that she found among a pile of used clothes from nearby Akkrapattai fishing hamlet, Jayashree pines continually for her sister Nithya, 6, and brother Gunasekaran, 10.
Her maternal grandmother appears patient when visitors are around but snarls at the child when she thinks no-one is watching.
The paternal grandmother picked up Nithya and Guna.
Both grandmothers stand to collect 100,000 rupees (US$2,272 dollars) promised by the state and another 100,000 rupees pledged by the federal government as the nearest relatives.
The government money is, however, intended to go into fixed deposits for an orphaned child to access when he or she reaches the age of 18.
Jayashree said sadly that her parents have gone "kizhakku poyirukkaanga" -- gone east, which in her village of some 5,000 fishing families means going to the beach to trade fish.
Jayashree's story is repeated almost in every relief center across the Tamil Nadu shoreline.
One UNICEF official said a man, who turned up claiming to be an uncle of an orphaned boy turned out to be a fraud after the child refused to go with him.
"Obviously, these orphans are precious to their relatives and even others not related, for the money relief offered by the government," said S. Vidyaakar, founder-director of Madras-based `Udhavum Karangal' (Helping Hands), a volunteer institution,
The organization, which cares for destitute children, old people and the terminally ill, placed an advertisement in the newspapers offering to take tsunami orphans into care. It received not a single response.
Vidyaakar, however, fears his time will come sooner than later, when the relatives grab the relief money and then dump the orphans on the road.
"Then we will step in and take care of those unfortunate ones," he said.
Started in 1982, Udhavum Karangal provides care for about 2,000 people, almost 500 of them children.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
‘SIGNS OF ESCALATION’: Russian forces have been aiming to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas province and have been capturing new villages as they move toward Pokrovsk Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi on Saturday said that Ukraine faced increasing difficulties in its fight against Moscow’s invasion as Russian forces advance and North Korean troops prepare to join the Kremlin’s campaign. Syrskyi, relating comments he made to a top US general, said outnumbered Ukrainian forces faced Russian attacks in key sectors of the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a nightly address said that Ukraine’s military command was focused on defending around the town of Kurakhove — a target of Russia’s advances along with Pokrovsk, a logistical hub to the north. He decried strikes
China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet Beijing is advancing toward producing the nation’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents provided to The Associated Press. There have long been rumors that China is planning to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the research by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California is the first to confirm it is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship. Why is China’s pursuit of nuclear-powered carriers significant? China’s navy is already
RSS