Restoring Family Links
Immediately following the disaster, the ICRC set up a website with information for people separated from their loved ones (http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/).
In cooperation with the Sri Lankan Red Cross and with the participation of experienced tracing delegates from national societies, the ICRC set up 12 mobile teams to help restore family links for survivors and their relatives.
The teams visited over 300 welfare centres in the districts of Colombo, Galle, Matara, Tangalle, Hambantota, Ampara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu, where they gave people the chance to make satellite telephone calls – the majority to relatives overseas – and collected “I Am Alive” messages to post on the website and publish in the Sri Lankan media.
Particularly vulnerable people were actively traced and contact with their families was restored through Red Cross messages. Since normal channels of communication in the country had been restored after three or four days, tsunami-related tracing activities were scaled back by mid-January.
- Over 1,700 victims placed satellite telephone calls to their families; 417 posted “I am alive” messages
- Over 50 particularly vulnerable people were put in touch with family members
- In some areas, people affected by the tsunami received mail kits with paper, envelopes, pens and stamps (ICRC)
As part of the Global Tracing Network, the Canadian Red Cross assisted Canadian families with:
- Delivering safe and well messages collected by the ICRC and its partners
- Notifying Canadians of the death of their non-Canadian family members after receiving information from ICRC
- Providing support and up-to-date information about the situation in the affected areas
- Referring Canadians to the family links website launched by ICRC shortly after the disaster, which was used by the mobile tracing teams in Sri Lanka and Indonesia
- Assisting Canadians to have their names removed from the Website
