Sri Lankans Demand Climate and Debt Justice After Cyclone Ditwah
- Melani Gunathilaka
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Cyclone Ditwah struck Sri Lanka's eastern and northern coasts on November 27th 2025, unleashing over 400 mm of rainfall in 24 hours at key stations, floods, storm surges, and landslides that displaced over 500,000 people, destroyed thousands of homes, and ravaged over 130,000 hectares of agricultural lands. The tear-shaped island saw its all four rivers in the central highland flood for the first time in recent history, while nearly 30 percent of the total land area across 14 districts is now classified as landslide prone.
The disaster buried entire villages under soil, inflicting profound non-economic losses including lives lost and human suffering, psychological trauma, shattered social cohesion, cultural and religious heritage erased, dignity undermined in shelters, disrupted education for children, biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation severing community ties to nature.
In a nation still reeling from the 2022 economic collapse and mounting foreign debt exceeding $37 billion, with a death toll now at 639 and food insecurity surging from flooded paddy fields endangering 2 million people, the disaster exposes the brutal intersection of climate vulnerability and financial entrapment. The Yukthi Collective's urgent statement released on December 10th serves as a powerful rallying cry from Sri Lankan civil society demanding "climate justice and debt justice" as inseparable imperatives.
Yukthi's Core Demands for Reparative Action
Sri Lanka, bound by IMF austerity under the 2023 Extended Fund Facility, grapples with crushing debt servicing obligations that have starved disaster preparedness funding. Yukthi's demands include immediate debt suspension until 2030 to redirect resources to recovery, climate reparations as grants from UNFCCC's $100 billion pledge, and feminist just transition prioritizing women who bear 80% of post-disaster unpaid care work. The demands include,
Immediate Debt Standstill: Urgent debt restructuring revision with massive reductions and immediate standstill on all current/future debt servicing, repudiating high-interest commercial debt from private creditors.
Climate Justice as Reparations: More climate finance delivered as grants and not loans, alongside reparations from high-emitting nations.
People-Centered Recovery: Rebuilding programs centered on people's participation and consultation (not handed to big corporations) prioritizing small food producers, women, workers, children, and ecology over profit.
Sri Lanka ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations contributing less than 0.08% of global emissions, yet faces US$313M annual disaster losses and US$240M yearly flood costs , projected to reach 3.5% GDP by mid-century. Minority communities in the war-scarred east face compounded marginalization, with disaster capitalism threatening profit-driven reconstruction absent debt relief.
Yukthi's statement charts a roadmap for action to join global debt strikes at COP30, pressure the Paris Club and IMF to cancel debt to deliver climate justice. As the waters withdraw, the damage does not. Cyclone Ditwah laid bare a system where those least responsible for climate breakdown pay the highest price, trapped under debt while disasters intensify. Sri Lanka stands at the fault line where climate collapse meets financial coercion, demanding an end to debt driven recovery and an end to climate finance that deepens dependency. Their demand is not charity, relief, or delay. It is justice. Justice delayed by debt is justice denied, and survival cannot be conditioned on repayment.
