UN Staffers Union urges their Members to avoid Sri Lanka

New York - The United Nations (UN), 13,000 strong Staff Union warned its staffers worldwide not to take any assignments in Sri Lanka as Sri Lanka is among the worst and dangerous places for any aid workers to work.

"Sri Lanka is among the world's most dangerous places for aid workers," the Staff Union said, in a statement last week

The UN, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordination, John Holmes, visited Sri Lanka in last August and told reporters that Sri Lanka is among the most dangerous places on the earth for humanitarian workers and called for the international monitoring mission.

Mass Arrests of Tamils in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka accused the UN envoy John Holmes and called him a “Terrorist” and under the payroll of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"I would say Holmes is completely a terrorist, a terrorist who supports terrorism. We consider people who support terrorists also terrorists," chief Government Whip Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, said.

Meanwhile, US-Based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and London Based Amnesty International (AI), Hong Kong-Based the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and London Based Minority Rights Group (MRG) all cited widespread rights abuses such as state enforced abductions, disappearances and killings of civilians called for the international monitoring mission in Sri Lanka.

Similarly, Sri Lanka has been called as a dangerous place for any journalists to work by the International Media rights body.

Sri Lanka has been singled out Sri Lanka as one of several crisis-stricken countries -- along with Sudan, Lebanon and the Central African Republic-- that has failed to track down the killers of humanitarian workers by UN.

United Kingdom, United States, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, South Korea, Sweden the Republic of Congo and the European Union castigated Sri Lanka specifically for its continued human rights abuses and the lack of protection for civilians caught in Sri Lanka.

The escalating violence in Sri Lanka over 5,800 civilians have been killed, thousands have been abducted, hundreds were disappeared while close to 500,000 people were internally displaced (IDP) in the North and East of Sri Lanka within past two years alone, a rights group says.