SLA refuses fishing permission in Jaffna for IDPs from Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 November 2009, 17:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna does not permit Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) brought from SLA internment camps in Vavuniyaa to engage in fishing in Jaffna peninsula though their relatives and friends are ready to help them to buy the needed fishing equipments, Fishermen’s Societies in Jaffna raised concern. Many persons in Jaffna have taken responsibility of maintaining their relatives and friends, creating a scarcity of places and houses to lodge the IDPs, the sources added.

Considerable number of IDPs brought to Jaffna is fisher folk from the areas near Jaffna lagoon, Vadamaraadchi East and the coastal areas near Kaangkeasanthu’rai.

No public organization or government department has come forward to help these IDPs who had been taken over by their relatives and friends.

Civil society sources in Jaffna have urged the government to help the IDPs engage in their livelihoods while Fishermen’s Societies have requested the authorities concerned to provide the fishing pass to the newcomers.

So far more than 45,000 persons of nearly 15,000 families, most of them of Jaffna origin, have been brought to Jaffna from Vavuniyaa.

Persons from Vanni areas which had been under the Liberation Tigers are also among the persons brought.

Jaffna peninsula residents, on realizing that the resettlement of Vanni IDPs will not take place in the near future, are taking extra efforts to help their relatives and friends among them.

SLA is adamant in maintaining the fishing pass system currently being imposed in Jaffna peninsula.