Free Damilvany Gnanakumar (VANY)
Vany is a British medic who was working in makeshift hospitals in the Sri Lankan no fire zone treating the huge number of innocent civilians.
She is currently interned in one of the Menik Farm camps outside the town of Vavuniya.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian from the no-fire zone on 13 May, Gnanakumar described the horrors of the final days of the 26-year war. A shell had exploded at the hospital where she was working, killing 47 people. "This is really a disaster. I don't know really how to explain it. At the moment, it is like hell," she said at the time. "For us, shell bombing is just a normal thing now. It is like an everyday routine. We have reached a point where it's like death is not a problem at all."
Letter to President Obama Urges Action on Sri Lanka
PHR and several prominent human rights organizations expressed their deep concern over the dire human rights and humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka in a joint letter to President Barack Obama. More than 20,000 civilians are reported killed as a result of indiscriminate shelling from Sri Lankan military forces, and some 300,000 persons are being held in government-run internment camps.
