Tuesday, January 4 2005 19:06 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: Even as NGOs and aid agencies operating in the tsunami-hit areas are still working out the actual number of children orphaned in the tragedy, the need for a massive rehabilitation drive for them was emphasised today (Jan 4, 2005) by relief workers in the affected southern Indian coast.

While stories abound of relatives wanting to adopt orphans because of the lure of Government compensation (Rs one lakh for each orphan), UNICEF (United Nations Children's Emergency Fund) officials working in seven of the 11 affected districts of Tamil Nadu said the prime need was to draw up a specific programme for traumatised children.

"Children have borne the real brunt of the tsunami. While thousands of them have died, thousands other have been orphaned. There is an immediate need to identify these children and design special programmes for their rehabilitation," UNICEF Communications Officer Savita Naqvi told reporters over phone from Nagapattinam.

The rehabilitation camps, she said, were abounding with stressed children, who have lost both parents. "In one of the camps that I visited, at least 120 were children out of the total 500 people."

Dr Saurabh Kole, who is heading a team of 10 doctors and paramedics working in make-shift medical camps across the two worst-affected Cuddalore and Nagapattinam districts of Tamil Nadu, told reporters over phone from Cuddalore that children in these camps appeared very frightened and were mostly suffering from trauma and anxiety neurosis.

"We have heard some heart rending stories -- a mother who lost five children, an auto driver who ran for life seeing the huge wall of waves and still has palpitations thinking about it and hundreds of kids who have lost everything and are stressed out," he said.