Bankrupt Sri Lanka seeks urgent help to feed children

• Ministry of Women and Child Affairs seeking private donations to feed potentially hundreds of thousands of children who have gone hungry.
• Nine out of ten people reliant on government handouts.
• Sri Lanka’s inflation rate is second only to Zimbabwe’s – official 60.8 percent.

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka issued an urgent appeal on Monday to combat rapidly spreading child malnutrition as the country’s economic crisis leaves nine out of ten people reliant on government handouts.

According to the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, they are seeking private donations to feed potentially hundreds of thousands of children who have gone hungry due to a lack of food.

The bankrupt state was unable to sustain welfare in the face of Sri Lanka’s worst economic crisis since independence.

“The problem was bad when the Covid pandemic was at its peak, but now, with the economic crisis, the situation is far worse,” secretary Neil Bandara Hapuhinne told reporters in Colombo.

The president of Sri Lanka wants a unity government to save the country’s economy.

He estimated that the numbers had multiplied several times since then due to the full impact of rampant inflation and dire shortages of food and other necessities.

He claims that the number of people receiving direct state handouts has nearly doubled in the last year, with more than 90% of the population now relying on the government for financial assistance.

According to Hapuhinne, this included approximately 1.6 million government employees.

Officially, Sri Lanka’s inflation rate was 60.8 percent in July, but private economists believe it is much higher, ranking second only to Zimbabwe.

UNICEF has also issued a funding appeal, claiming that the severe economic crisis has disproportionately impacted children in Sri Lanka.

Late last year, the country ran out of foreign exchange to finance even basic imports, and Colombo defaulted on its $51 billion foreign debt in mid-April.

The government is now in bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund under embattled new President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

In a country that once had the best social indicators in South Asia, the country’s 22 million people face lengthy daily power outages, long lines for fuel, and shortages of staple food and medicines.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and resigned last month after thousands of protesters enraged by the economic crisis stormed his official residence.

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