SLN camps in the islets worse than Vavuniyaa internment centres

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 October 2009, 04:10 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) hastily brought to the islets of Jaffna and held in Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) makeshift camps complained that they are detained in roofless houses without sufficient drinking water and basic facilities, sources in Jaffna said. The government which is only interested in relocating the IDPs in Vavuniyaa in the islets of Jaffna in a hurry to avoid congestion has left them in the hands of SLN without providing them any assistance, civil society sources in Jaffna said.

225 IDPs of 85 families were brought to the islets of Jaffna Friday and 29 families of these IDPs are detained by SLN in Kaarainakar and 56 families in Oorkaavattu’rai (Kayts).

The IDPs are held in dilapidated houses, abandoned by its owners during the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensives in 1990 and are denied the freedom of movement. Lack of sanitary facilities and drinking water in these camps are likely to cause infectious diseases among the inmates.

The IDPs further complained that they had been parted from their relatives in Vavuniyaa camps.

Around 3,500 IDPs, originally from the islets of Jaffna, have been brought to the islets from Vavuniyaa SLA internment camps and there are nearly 2,500 IDPs from the islets to be brought to the islets, Jaffna Secretariat sources said.