IDPs living on Jaffna railway track area ordered to leave

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 23 June 2009, 17:26 GMT]
The president of the Federation of Jaffna Non-government Organizations (NGOs), C. V. K. Sivagnanam, requested Jaffna Government Agent (GA) not to evict immediately the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), numbering around a hundred families, living in camps on the railway track area in Jaffna since the time they were thrown out of their residences in Valikaamam North which were declared High Security Zones (HSZ) by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in 1990, sources in Jaffna said.



Jaffna Secretariat officials have instructed the IDPs to leave their shelters at once as the railway track from Vavuniyaa to Kaangeasanththurai is to be reconstructed with the aim to resume train service.

The IDPs have lodged complaints with Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office seeking help to resettle them in their original properties in Valikaamam North.

Mr. Sivagnanam, while welcoming the move to resume the long suspended train service to Jaffna, requested the GA to consider the plight of the IDPs and grant them respite on humanitarian grounds until they are found alternative places to move in, in his letter to the GA.



The IDPs had been helped by several NGOs living in their shelters erected on government property on and along the railway tracks.

Meanwhile, the IDPs complain that SLA soldiers are forcing them to leave from their shelters.