Sri Lanka gifts elephants to Japanese children
Date: 30-Apr-02
Country: SRI LANKA
A group of Japanese children began pooling their pocket money for an elephant after they were moved by reports about the impact of the recent conflict in the Balkans on a zoo in the Croatian city of Osijek.
Seven Japanese children wrote to the Sri Lankan government for help and visited the country last year to find a suitable animal.
Their efforts were rewarded yesterday when Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe gave them two elephants.
The children will give one to the Osijek zoo and take the other back to Japan to mark 50 years of diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka.
