Jaffna IDP families seek SLMM intervention for resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 09 September 2005, 16:55 GMT]
Displaced families in Jaffna district have begun submitting individual memoranda to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) seeking its intervention to resettle them in their lands and houses now being occupied by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), civil society sources said. The SLA has declared areas where these houses and agricultural lands of the IDPs are located high security zones. IDP families demand that the SLMM should take steps to vacate the army occupation according to the terms defined in the Ceasefire Agreement signed by the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) about three years ago.

About five hundred IDP families of Valigamam north Friday morning submitted memoranda to the SLMM office in Jaffna.

Last week about twenty-six IDP families handed over individual memoranda to Jaffna SLMM, sources said.

Thousands of families displaced from their own houses and lands in Valigamam, Thenmaradchchi divisions and other areas in the Jaffna district due to the two-decade old war are languishing in welfare centres and refugee camps living with meager relief and other assistance from the Sri Lanka Government and other agencies. These IDP families expected with the signing of the CFA they would be resettled and rehabilitated in their own houses and would be allowed to cultivate their agricultural lands. However, the government authorities are failed to take positive steps for the last three and a half years to withdraw the army from the occupied areas where IDPs earlier lived.

Civil sources said IDP families in Jaffna peninsula as a last resort have decided to represent their woes and sufferings in welfare centres and refugee camps directly to the SLMM monitors in Jaffna.

Civil sources further said in the coming days more IDPs are expected to hand over petitions to the SLMM.