4,000 poverty-stricken Tamil families deprived of Samurdhi assistance in Moothoor

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 February 2015, 18:45 GMT]
3,898 families of genocide-affected Eezham Tamils from 11 Tamil villages in the Moothoor division of Trincomalee district have been completely deprived of Samurdhi poverty alleviation food stamps for 106 months under the previous regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, civil sources in Trincomalee said. The distribution of food stamps and other poverty alleviation benefits were stopped since March 2006, before the SL military launched military onslaught destroying the Tamil villages.

Although many of the uprooted Tamil villagers were allowed to resettle in the division since 2008 amidst wide-scale structural land grab by the occupying SL State, only 547 of the Samurdhi beneficiaries from Champoor East and Champoor West GS divisions were given food stamps, and that too just a few days before the visit of former Human Rights High Commissioner Navanethem Pillay in 2013, the sources further said.

The affected people and Tamil politicians in the district have brought the issue of grave discrimination to the new regime in Colombo in the beginning of February, the sources further said.

United National Party (UNP) Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, who is the son of former SL president late R. Premadasa, is the current Cabinet Minister of Housing and Samurdhi in the new regime in Colombo.

257 families from Kaddai-pa'richchaan North, 450 families in Kaddai-pa'richchaan South, 486 families in Cheanaiyoor, 510 families in Kadatkaraich-cheanai, 131 families from Champoor East, 115 families in Champoor West, 93 families in Koonith-theevu, 152 families in Navaratna-puram, 577 families in Paaddaa'li-puram, 447 families in Nalloor, 680 families in Pa'l'lik-kudiyiruppu, coming under the poverty line have been deprived of food stamps and related assistance under the Samurdhi scheme, the civil sources said.