SL Government intends to detain IDPs in camps indefinitely

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 10:13 GMT]
Northern Province Governor, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Minister Douglas Devananda directed government officials in Jaffna to take immediate steps to bring Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Jaffna detained in Vavuniyaa camps to the detainment camps in Jaffna district and to send IDPs from Vanni detained Jaffna district to Vavuniyaa camps, according to the decision taken in the Jaffna District Coordination Committee held Tuesday in Jaffna Secretariat, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, the IDPs from the islets of Jaffna brought to Kaarainakar and Veala’nai Monday, on the assurance that they will be settled in abandoned houses, are kept in school buildings and Saiva temples until new detainment camps are established for them to move in, the sources added.

Meanwhile, it was decided in the above meeting to bring the IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps from Nakarkoayil which was under the control of Liberation Tigers to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detainment camps in Kudaththanai in Vadmaraadchi.

250 IDPs brought to Karainakar and 255 brought to Vela’nai in the islets of Jaffna are presently sheltered in school buildings and temples in these areas.

They will be again detained in the new camps established in areas under the direct control of Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) forces.

Though 728 IDPs of 194 families affected by tsunami in Ma’natkaadu, not permitted to resettle in their villages by the SLA since 2004, are now allowed to resettle, they can only do so in the vicinity and control of the SLA and not in their original places, the sources further said.