Detainees displaced again due to floods in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 11 April 2009, 17:39 GMT]
Around 660 civilians fleeing war in Vanni and held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention centres in Kaithadi in Jaffna district have been moved by SLA to Chaavakachcheari Hindu College as the detention centres are flooded due to the unrelenting rain that began pouring Friday early morning, sources in Jaffna said. Amidst meteorological department warnings that the rain will continue for two more days Jaffna Secretariat officials are facing a crisis in finding alternate places for the inmates in the detention centres in Mirusuvil and Kodikaamam, in Thenmaraadchi, the sources added.

Kaithadi Saiva Children Home and the Jaffna University Chiththa Medical College hostel in Kaithadi, which had been appropriated by SLA to detain the Vanni civilians, are submerged in water.

Cooked meals are being supplied to the detainees held in Chaavakachcheari Hindu College where basic facilities are not adequate to meet the needs of the inmates, NGO representatives who visited the College said.

Meanwhile, the SLA detention centres located in Mirusuvil Roaman Catholic Church surroundings and in Kodikaamam Government Tamil Mixed School are facing the same predicament and are expected to be moved from there, Jaffna Secretariat officials said.

The officials are faced with the task of finding alternate places for the detainees.

The makeshift shelters in Mirusuvil have been erected in low lying ground where rain water runs in as the downpour continues persistently.