COLOMBO: Residents of a remote islet, dominated by the Tamil community, in north eastern Sri lanka are protesting against the government's decision to bury the Muslim COVID-19 victims there.
The government on Tuesday said that the COVID-19 fatalities from the Muslim minority community would be transported at government cost to be buried at the Iranathivu island in the Mannar region.
Residents of the island, which is dominated by the country's Tamil minority, protested on Wednesday against the government's decision.
They claim that their island would be destroyed if the COVID-19 victims are buried there.
They said that it takes nearly 90 minutes by boat from the mainland to reach Iranathivu and when the sea is rough in unfavourable weather, the travel becomes impossible.
Therefore, it is not practicable to transport a virus infected body safely by boat and cross 20 kms distance in the sea, they said.
However, Director General Health Services Asela Gunawardena said, "this is only a temporary measure. We will soon identify other locations too."
The islet, which is 1 km x 1.5 km in size, has a Sri Lankan Navy detachment while its residents were displaced in 1997 at the height of military conflict with the LTTE.
There are a little over 400 families now living in the islet.
The island was designated as the burial site of Muslims following the community protests for nearly an year as the burial rights of Muslims, who died due to COVID, were denied by the government citing health issues.
Amidst mounting international criticism, Sri Lanka last month revised a controversial mandatory order to cremate the bodies of COVID-19 victims, which denied minority communities, including Muslims, their religious rights.
An expert committee had earlier ruled that burying of COVID victims could contaminate the water table.
The government had ignored the recommendations of the second panel which stated that it is safe to bury victims as indicated by the World Health Organisation.
Reacting to the government's decision to bury the COVID-19 victims at the island, Rauff Hakeem, leader of the main Muslim party, said, "there is no end to their sadistic pleasure in harassing a traumatised community. Pathetic racism prevails."
M A Sumanthiran from the main Tamil party TNA said the decision to send Muslim dead bodies for burial at Iranathivu in a Tamil dominated area was the government's idea to create a rift between Tamil and Muslim communities.
He said the two minority communities had joined together to force the government to end the policy of forced cremations.