COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s parliament will interrupt its recess to fast-track financial aid needed for rebuilding after Cyclone Ditwah, which killed nearly 650 people, officials said Sunday.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had said last week that the island nation would need at least $1.66 billion in 2026 — in addition to the $166 million he said the government would spend this year — to rebuild and recover from what he described as the “most challenging natural disaster” to hit the country.
Parliament Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne on Sunday issued a notice for an urgent meeting of the legislature, which had gone into recess after approving the 2026 budget earlier this month and was not scheduled to meet again until January 6.
“I have summoned the parliament to meet on Thursday (18th)... having been requested so to do by the Hon. Prime Minister (Harini Amarasuriya),” the Speaker said in a gazette notification.
Officials at the country’s finance ministry told AFP that the meeting was being held to approve next year’s expenditure for cyclone recovery.
Official figures show that 643 people were killed, with another 184 still missing, following landslides and floods triggered by the cyclone.
At least 2.3 million people — just over 10 percent of the country’s population — were affected by the devastating calamity. Nearly 75,000 people remain housed in state-run camps.
An official leading the recovery effort has estimated that overall damage could cost up to $7 billion.
The United Nations last week set up a $35.3 million fund to provide food and temporary shelter to 658,000 of the worst-affected people.
The fund excludes reconstruction of damaged infrastructure or private property and focuses solely on immediate basic needs.
The United Nations’ top envoy to the country, Marc-Andre Franche, said last week $9.5 million had already been secured, with the European Union, Switzerland, Britain and the United States among donors pledging funds.
The United Nations urged member states and other donors to help raise the remaining $25.8 million.
A quarter of Sri Lanka’s population was living in poverty when the cyclone struck, Franche said, urging the international community to assist the devastated nation.
Sri Lanka is also recovering from its worst-ever financial crisis.
It defaulted on $46 billion of external debt in April 2022 and secured a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund in early 2023.
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Sri Lankan lawmakers to meet to fast-track cyclone aid
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Sri Lankan lawmakers to meet to fast-track cyclone aid
- Sri Lanka’s parliament will interrupt its recess to fast-track financial aid needed for rebuilding after Cyclone Ditwah, which killed nearly 650 people, officials said Sunday
Spanish police evict hundreds of migrants from squat deemed a safety hazard
BARCELONA: Police in northeastern Spain began carrying out eviction orders Wednesday to clear an abandoned school building where hundreds of mostly undocumented migrants were living in a squat north of Barcelona.
Knowing that the eviction was coming, most of the occupants had left before police in riot gear from Catalonia’s regional police entered the school’s premises early in the morning under court orders.
The squat was located in Badalona, a working class city that borders Barcelona. Many sub-Saharan migrants, mostly from Senegal and Gambia, had moved into the empty school building since it was left abandoned in 2023.
The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, announced the evictions in a post on X. “As I had promised, the eviction of the squat of 400 illegal squatters in the B9 school in Badalona begins,” he wrote.
Lawyer Marta Llonch, who represents the squatters, said that many of them lived from selling scrap metal collected from the streets, while a few others have residency and work permits but were forced to live there because they couldn’t afford housing.
“Many people are going to sleep on the street tonight,” Llonch told The Associated Press. “Just because you evict these people it doesn’t mean they disappear. If you don’t give them an alternative place to live they will now be on the street, which will be a problem for them and the city.”
García Albiol, of the conservative Popular Party, has built his political career as Badalona’s long-standing mayor with an anti-immigration stance.
The Badalona town hall had argued that the squat was a public safety hazard. In 2020, an old factory occupied by around a hundred migrants in Badalona caught fire and four people were killed in the blaze.
Like other southern European countries, Spain has for more than a decade seen a steady influx of migrants who risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean or Atlantic in small boats.
While many developed countries have taken a hard-line position against migration, Spain’s left-wing government has said that legal migration has helped its economy grow.
Knowing that the eviction was coming, most of the occupants had left before police in riot gear from Catalonia’s regional police entered the school’s premises early in the morning under court orders.
The squat was located in Badalona, a working class city that borders Barcelona. Many sub-Saharan migrants, mostly from Senegal and Gambia, had moved into the empty school building since it was left abandoned in 2023.
The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, announced the evictions in a post on X. “As I had promised, the eviction of the squat of 400 illegal squatters in the B9 school in Badalona begins,” he wrote.
Lawyer Marta Llonch, who represents the squatters, said that many of them lived from selling scrap metal collected from the streets, while a few others have residency and work permits but were forced to live there because they couldn’t afford housing.
“Many people are going to sleep on the street tonight,” Llonch told The Associated Press. “Just because you evict these people it doesn’t mean they disappear. If you don’t give them an alternative place to live they will now be on the street, which will be a problem for them and the city.”
García Albiol, of the conservative Popular Party, has built his political career as Badalona’s long-standing mayor with an anti-immigration stance.
The Badalona town hall had argued that the squat was a public safety hazard. In 2020, an old factory occupied by around a hundred migrants in Badalona caught fire and four people were killed in the blaze.
Like other southern European countries, Spain has for more than a decade seen a steady influx of migrants who risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean or Atlantic in small boats.
While many developed countries have taken a hard-line position against migration, Spain’s left-wing government has said that legal migration has helped its economy grow.
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