"Ceasefire has failed to bring normalcy to Jaffna residents"

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 February 2004, 19:22 GMT]
The Jaffna District Humanitarian Agencies Consortium (JDHAC) Sunday handed over a memorandum to the head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in Jaffna stating that normalcy has not returned to the lives of several thousand Tamil people including internally displaced in the peninsula even after two years of ceasefire, civil society sources said.

JDHAC delegation led by its President Mr.K.Paramanathan handed the memorandum to mark the second year anniversary of the signing of the ceasefire agreement by the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, sources said.

The delegation comprised Mr.S.Sakthivel and HUDEC representative Rev.Fr A.Jeyakumar, sources said.

The memorandum said that the during the last two years Sri Lanka government troops have been constructing new camps in residential areas in addition to the existing high security zones creating additional hardships to civilians and refugees, sources said.

About 87, 722 internally displaced Tamil civilians are still languishing in refugee camps and welfare centres unable to resettle in their lands and houses, which are located in the high security zones. Government troops have failed to respect the ceasefire agreement, the memorandum added.