Resettled families in Vanni suffer without adequate transport

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 October 2010, 05:35 GMT]
The resettled families in Vanni are facing great difficulty without adequate transport facilities as Sri Lanka government had not done anything to meet the transport facility needs of the people resettled in villages in Vanni located far apart, sources in Vanni said. The government run Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) had abandoned its depots in Vanni for the last twenty years and the limited number of buses allocated to Vanni after the war is hardly enough to serve the residents of Vanni, Ki’linochchi SLTB officials said.

The limited number of buses in Vanni plying on the main routes serves only the government employees and teachers, the officials said.

Private transport facilities too are not available as all the vehicles left behind by people fleeing war had been systematically stolen by Sinhala and Muslim traders from South aided by Sri Lanka Army soldiers soon after the war.

The families being resettled in villages scattered throughout Vanni are forced to walk or ride bicycles to reach each other and to attend to their various errands.