Parents waiting for (tsunami) waves to return kids

[rainbow4321]

<sniff> Tissue alert....


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TSUNAMI_CHILDREN?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=INTERNATIONAL&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

NAVALADY BEACH, Sri Lanka (AP) -- As dawn breaks over Sri Lanka's coast, dozens of parents come to the beach where huge waves seized their children a week ago. "They believe their kids are alive and the sea will return them - one day," UNICEF chief Carol Bellamy said on Sunday, after touring this island country's tsunami-devastated shore.

Children accounted for a staggering 40 percent, or 12,000, of Sri Lanka's death total of 30,000, officials said. But without bodies to mourn over, many parents find it hard to believe their children are dead. Some children were buried in mass graves, before parents were told. Many were swept out to sea. Others may still await discovery in some of the island's 800 refugee centers.

Day after day since the tsunami struck Dec. 26, parents come at dawn and wander the beach in the devastated districts of Ampara and Batticaloa. "They don't talk to anyone. They stay for an hour or two and then go back," said N. Wijewickrema, the Batticaloa police superintendent. "They return the next day," he told Bellamy

Some parents, who lost all their children, reportedly have taken orphans from refugee centers to raise as their own before the authorities were able to place the children with extended family members. Aware of the problem, UNICEF's Sri Lanka chief Ted Chaiban said the agency and local child care groups would establish a national program to match orphaned children, without anyone else to care for them, with grieving parents

[Solly Mack]

1. if that doesn't pierce your heart

nothing ever will

those poor people

[Erika]

2. Yeah

A grief level that is unbelievable. How great that those who lost kids are reaching out to orphans. That's what we did in the pioneer days of this country.

[Miami Liberal]

3. This is so heartbreaking

I just can't imagine going through something like this.

[rainbow4321]

4. I know they mean well...

by trying to give the kids a new home but imagine being the family looking for your child in the orphanage and not finding him/her..not because he/she is dead but because another family took the child home. My concern is that these kids will get lost in the chaos..especially since it was on the news today about some thugs selling kids on the black market post-tsunami for $30-$40. Hope someone trustworthy is guarding the orphanages!