IsraAID, Israel’s leading nongovernmental humanitarian-aid agency, is deploying an emergency response team to Sri Lanka as communities struggle to rebuild following Cyclone Ditwah.
The team is slated to arrive this weekend, focusing immediately on installing water filters and training communities on how to use them, in order to both provide safe drinking water and reduce vulnerability to water-borne diseases.
At least 639 people were killed, with more than 200 still missing, two weeks after the storm brought heavy rain, flooding and landslides to communities across the country in late November.
IsraAID’s team will focus on urgent relief distributions to meet immediate water, sanitation, hygiene and other public-health needs, including providing emergency household water filters to families without adequate access to safe water.
Up to 100,000 people are currently displaced to temporary shelters, as the onset of monsoon season threatens to exacerbate emergency needs and raise the risks of disease outbreaks and secondary crises. Large-scale damage to infrastructure, including water systems and the country’s railway network, has complicated relief efforts.
The emergency comes in the early stages of the country’s recovery from years of economic crisis, with vulnerable communities still affected.
