IDPs brought to Jaffna suffer without shelters

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 04:28 GMT]
The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) brought to Jaffna district from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa are suffering in pouring rain without sufficient shelter for them, sources in Jaffna said. Divisional Secretaries (DSs) of Jaffna district find hard to meet the immediate needs of the IDPs for want of funds, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. The ten government ministers recently appointed by the President of Sri Lanka for Divisional Secretary areas in Jaffna to function as resettlement coordinators have failed to return to Jaffna after their first visit. Jaffna district DSs are at a quandary to take decisions without the approval of the respective ministers and due to lack of funds to spend on the immediate needs of the IDPs, the sources added.

3,964 persons of 1,242 families were brought to Jaffna Thursday to Jaffna and these IDPs are from the Divisional Secretariat areas of Changkaanai, Koapaay and Thellippazhai. They have nothing but tarpaulins to stay in and sufficient arrangements have not been made to meet their immediate needs as rain pours down in Jaffna district.

The failure of the ten coordinating ministers to allocate funds for their respective Divisional Secretariats is the main obstacle in providing the basic facilities for the IDPs left to suffer in the rain, Secretariat sources said.

Meanwhile, the Secretary to the Northern Province Education Minister has issued an urgent directive Thursday which calls all male teachers earlier serving in war areas and now attached temporarily to the schools in Jaffna district to immediately report for duties at the Education Office in Muzhangaavil in Mannaar district.

The male teachers who had been serving in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Vanni have been ordered to teach the students held in the internment camps in Vavuniyaa.

This shows that the resettlement of Vanni IDPs from Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu district will not be feasible in the near future, civil society sources pointed out.