SLA in Jaffna refuses entry to 1500 Vanni IDPs

[TamilNet, Monday, 23 November 2009, 07:29 GMT]
1500 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Vavuniyaa camps brought to Jaffna Friday claiming that they are from Jaffna peninsula are now being held in the abandoned Raamaavil camp in Kodikaamam as Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna refuse them permission to be settled in Jaffna. Most of these IDPs are not from Jaffna but residents of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts in Vanni and it appears that they will be held permanently in Raamaavil camp, Thenmaraadchi Divisional Secretariat sources said.
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Colombo announces new phase of 'IDP management'

[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 November 2009, 00:55 GMT]
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brother and advisor Basil Rajapaksa MP on Saturday announced that the Tamils held in the internment camps of Vavuniyaa would be free, starting from December 01, to go and live wherever they want to or to choose whether they want to continue to remain inside the camps. Tamil sources in Vavuniyaa view the announcement with scepticism describing it as an 'election gimmick' while expressing fear of increased disappearances and militarisation of the Tamil homeland.
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Dengue fever claims 2 lives in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 November 2009, 05:50 GMT]
Dengue is spreading fast in Vavuniyaa and its suburbs. Two persons have died and thirteen others warded in Vavuniyaa general hospital due to dengue fever until Thursday. Over thousand people seek treatment for dengue in Vavuniyaa general hospital daily and majority of them are internally displaced people now detained in camps in Vavuniyaa, hospital sources said.
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Vanni Government employees in Jaffna not allowed to report for duty in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 November 2009, 05:40 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) civil administrative officials in Jaffna refused Friday to permit government employees earlier serving in Vanni to report for duty in Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts in Vanni though Northern Province Governor, Major G. A. Chandrasiri had ordered them to report for duty in both districts. Many government employees including teachers who are originally from Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts and now staying in Jaffna were not allowed to return to their places for duty Friday by the SLA civil authorities in Jaffna Sinhala Maha Viththiyalaya.
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2 Tamil youths injured in landmine explosion in Mannaar

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 November 2009, 17:51 GMT]
Two Tamil youths deployed by Sri Lanka Army for de-mining in Maanthai west in Mannaar district were injured Thursday around 2:15 pm as they attempted to remove a landmine planted under a tree, sources in Mannaar said.
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More Batticaloa IDP families released for resettlement in their villages

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 November 2009, 17:49 GMT]
Fifty-one Internally Displaced Persons of eighteen families held in camps in Jaffna district were sent to Batticaloa Thursday by three state sector buses thorough A9 road. They are now given shelter in Batticaloa Sinhala Maha Vidiyalayam. They would be resettled in their villages in the district after screening by armed forces and police intelligence unit, sources in Batticaloa said.
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IDP camps in Jaffna to be closed, retaining Thenmarraadchi camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 16:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has decided to close the Jaffna camps in which Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are detained while retaining Kodikaamam and Mirusuvil camps in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. According to this plan 68 persons from Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts who had no relatives to take responsibility of them were transferred to Thenmaraadchi camps Wednesday from Koappaay Teachers’ College, the sources added.
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CID arrest heads of resettled IDP families – TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 09:18 GMT]
Unidentified persons without uniform posing as personnel of Criminal Investigation Department arrest heads of IDP families who have been resettled in their own villages after detention in camps located in Vavuniyaa. These persons do not provide receipts to their relatives when they remove heads of their families, complained Mr. K. Thurairatnasingham, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, in parliament Tuesday.
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Police instruct resettled Vanni IDPs in Batticaloa to re-register

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 05:16 GMT]
Police have requested all resettled Vanni internally displaced families in Batticaloa district to re-register them in the respective police stations immediately, sources in Batticaloa said.
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'Norway finances humiliation of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 03:18 GMT]
Norway is up to appease Colombo as the Tamil Tigers are out of the picture and the only way to do this is abetting Colombo’s discrimination of Tamils in the line of Iran, Burma and China, writes Professor Øivind Fuglerud of the University of Oslo adding that a revealing cue comes from Norway insensitively sponsoring a Buddhist organisation to conduct a music festival on 27th November in Galle, timed to humiliate Tamils on the Heroes' Day. Norway sat silently like a mouse in the final phase of the war. Now its ‘humanitarian’ aid helps the internment camps of captivity and death. In future Norway’s aid may be integral to Colombo’s military complex cum Buddhist temple infrastructure to dominate Tamil areas, he further says. Not surprisingly, Norway's leading news agency, NTB, on Monday came out with biased reporting on the first ever democratically elected council of diaspora Tamils.
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Main suspect in 1996 Central Bank bombing claimed arrested in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 09:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka police spokesman and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), I. M. Karunaratne, claimed that the main suspect in the bomb attack on Sri Lanka Central Bank in 1996 has been taken into custody in Cheddiku’lam in Vavuniyaa district when he tried to get out of the detention camp with a forged National Identity Card (NIC).
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76 IDP bodies in Vavuniyaa hospital to be buried at State expense

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2009, 15:48 GMT]
Seventy-six bodies of IDPs who died during the last three months are lying in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa general hospital as no one had come forward to claim them and do the last rites. Forty of them are new born babies while rest belongs to elders and women dead due to natural causes and during delivery, hospital sources said.
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Jaffna residents still have to obtain SLA pass to use A9 road

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2009, 05:30 GMT]
Although the Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence had announced that all persons can travel through A9 road showing their identity documents Sri Lanka Amy (SLA) authorities in Jaffna insist on all Jaffna residents obtaining the travel pass from their local SLA civil administration officers, sources in Jaffna said. Many Jaffna residents who had tried to travel through A9 road Saturday and Sunday without the SLA travel pass were sent back home, the sources added.
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SLA travel restriction on Jaffna peninsula residents remains

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 November 2009, 08:28 GMT]
Though Sri Lanka Defence Ministry has announced that the A9 road has been opened to the public Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Palaali Military Head Office issued a new directive Friday which says that all residents of Jaffna peninsula should obtain the SLA travel pass as usual from their local SLA civil authorities if they wish to travel out of the peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. The Non-government Organizations Federation in Jaffna has sent an appeal to President Mahinda Rajapakse requesting the removal of the above travel restriction imposed on the people of the peninsula.
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Vavuniyaa court remands TNA parliamentarian Kanagaretnam till 4 December

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 November 2009, 05:20 GMT]
Mr. Sathasivam Kanagaretnam, Mullaiththeevu district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian was produced in Vavuniyaa Magistrate’s court Friday morning for the first time after six months detention in the headquarters of the Terrorist Investigation Division of the Sri Lanka Police. He was taken into custody from Oamanthai camp in May this year while he was staying with his family. He fled from Mullaiththeevu when Sri Lanka Army launched its final battle against the LTTE and sought refuge in Oamanthai.
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Jaffna, an open prison since SLA occupation – Southern media persons

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 05:27 GMT]
A group consisting 27 media persons from the South brought to Jaffna by the Peace Congress Sunday told media in Jaffna that after 13 years of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupation Jaffna peninsula remains an open prison for its residents, before leaving Jaffna Monday. People lock themselves into their houses after dark and are subjected to various restrictions violating their freedom of movement, expression, imposed by SLA, they further said.
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Police arrest 2 Tamil civilians in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 November 2009, 10:38 GMT]
The Intelligence Unit of the Sri Lanka Police Saturday night arrested two Tamil civilians in Thoa’nikkal in Vavuniyaa on information received that they had been members of the Liberation Tigers. They are now detained in Vavuniya police station and being interrogated to find out their involvement with the militant group earlier, police spokesman Nimal Mediwake said in Colombo.
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Government has to get the support of the South first to solve Tamil ethnic issue – Vasudeva Nanayakkara

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 06:28 GMT]
Senior Advisor to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse and a veteran Sinhalese politician, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, said that the government has to get the support of the people in the South of the country to solve the problems of the Tamils, in response to questions raised by the members of Jaffna Traders’ Association (JTA) in a meeting held Saturday evening in the JTA building in Jaffna. The members had asked as to why it was not possible to carry out the Supreme Court directive to resettle the IDPs from Valikaamam North in their own places now occupied by Sri Lanka Army while the Supreme Court order to demerge Northern and Eastern provinces had been executed overnight.
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Last of the Jaffna IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps brought to Jaffna – Jaffna GA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 05:59 GMT]
The assignment of bringing Jaffna IDPs in Vavuniyaa to Jaffna has been completed with the arrival of 3,588 persons of 1,114 families Saturday night in Jaffna, according to Jaffna Government Agent (GA) K. Ganesh. Meanwhile, a group of media persons from the South led by Jegan Perera, the Director of Peace Congress, has been allowed by the government to come to Jaffna independently after the closure of A9 land route by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in 2006, sources in Jaffna said.
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Vanni IDPs suffer in flooded Vavuniyaa camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 November 2009, 16:56 GMT]
Most of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps for Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa being flooded due to the current down pour many of the IDPs held in Menik Farm camp had fled from their shelters seeking refuge in the public halls and school buildings located inside the camp, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Meanwhile, amid heavy rains and thunder civil authorities continue to transfer IDPs from Menik Farm during nights and drop them in public places in areas where their homes are located.
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