Save the Children fears hundreds of children missing or separated from parents, following panicked escape from Sri Lanka 'No Fire' Zone

Save the Children fears hundreds of children are missing or separated from their parents, following the chaotic escape from the Sri Lanka 'no fire' zone this week. Even before the current influx into government camps in the north of the country, the children's charity estimated that a fifth of all children (423 out of 2036) in four camps where the organisation is working, were separated from their families.

Stein Lied, a Save the Children protection advisor in Northern Sri Lanka said, "The last influx was so large and so fast that we fear many hundreds of children have lost their parents along the way. The escape from the 'no fire' zone was so panicked that even a breastfeeding mother was separated from her newborn."

While the Sri Lankan government has taken measures to help reunify children with their parents, Save the Children is deeply concerned that with so many families uprooted numerous times, the situation is becoming dire. The charity estimates that 50,000 of those displaced are children. Read more ...