Court directs Colombo to grant permission to camp visit by MPs

[TamilNet, Friday, 19 June 2009, 03:28 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Supreme Court directed the State Counsel to seek permission from the Defence Secretary to grant permission to Members of Parliament to visit the camps occupied by the internally displaced persons in a Fundamental Rights petition filed by members of SL Parliament. The petitioner MPs said that they had sought permission from the relevant authorities to visit the IDP camps and the hospitals in Mannaar, Vavuniyaa and other places that house the civilians who had fled the war zone and surrendered to the Sri Lankan forces, but permission has not been granted.
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SL Police shoot 3 persons dead in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 June 2009, 06:49 GMT]
A special team of the Sri Lankan Police in Vavuniyaa shot and killed three persons at Nelukku'lam cemetery area in Vavuniyaa division in the early hours of Thursday around 2:30 a.m. Their identities have not been revealed by the police. But, the police claimed that the victims belonged to a gang of robbers and that they were shot by the police in an encounter. However, informed sources in Vavuniyaa said there was a clash between LTTE cadres and the Police.
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Seeman alleges abduction of young girls by SLA in Vavuniyaa internment camps

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 June 2009, 13:42 GMT]
Popular Film Director Seeman on Sunday said he had received reliable information from the captives inside the internment camps in Vavuniyaa that the Sri Lankan police and military establishment have started to 'filter and separate teenage girls from their families during the latest hours in large numbers. Mr. Seeman from Tamil Nadu questioned how this 'filtering' of young girls could take place inside the internment camps without any monitoring by the UN agencies present in Vavuniyaa.
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Camp disappearances reach alarming levels - Rights advocate

[TamilNet, Sunday, 14 June 2009, 04:21 GMT]
Sunila Abeysekera, a human rights activist and executive director of INFORM human rights documentation center in Sri Lanka, in an interview to Real News Network in Toronto, accused the Sri Lanka Government authorities of not providing enough attention to the welfare of the nearly 300,000 people in the internment camps who have come to these camps after months of deprivation, and said that the lack of proper registration procedures for the people inside the camp is providing Colombo a free hand in facilitating the Paramilitaries to take youths out of the camps in large numbers without any accountability.
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FR petition in SL Supreme Court against detaining Vanni IDPs

[TamilNet, Friday, 12 June 2009, 22:48 GMT]
The Centre for Police Alternatives (CPA) Friday filed a Fundamental Rights Petition in the Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court challenging the detention of hundreds of thousands of Vanni displaced Tamil families in the camps located in Cheddiku'lam and Vavuniyaa under the Emergency Regulations thus violating the fundamental rights of them such as freedom of movement and depriving employment opportunities without restriction, enshrined in the constitution, legal sources said.
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62 dead bodies of IDPs unclaimed at hospital mortuary in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 11 June 2009, 14:00 GMT]
Sixty two bodies of Tamil refugees died in internment camps in Vavuniyaa and Cheddiku'lam have been kept in the mortuary of Vavuniyaa general hospital awaiting orders of the Magistrate’s Court to conduct common burial, legal sources said. Meanwhile, medical sources said that fifty one of the victims were elderly IDPs and the remaining infants, died during delivery.
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SLA refuses to release 6 Catholic priests detained in Vavuniyaa SLA camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 19:57 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Command rejected a request made by Jaffna Bishop, Rt. Rev. Thomas Saundaranayagam, to release the six Catholic priests from Vanni held in one of the SLA detention centres in Vavuniyaa as they are suffering from illness, Jaffna Bishop House sources said. The Bishop had made the request to Defence Secretary to allow the six priests to get back to their parishes, the sources added.
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57,293 children held in Vavuniyaa SLA internment camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 17:46 GMT]
57,293 children from Vanni are presently detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, U. L. M. Haldeen, Secretary to the Ministry of Disaster Relief said to the media.
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22 elderly IDPs die in Cheddikul’am internment camp

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 17:29 GMT]
Twenty-two elderly internally displaced persons from Vanni detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa and Cheddikul'am died in two days. Fourteen died on Sunday and eight on Monday and all those dead were above seventy years of age, medical sources said.
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Elderly IDPs to be released from Cheddikul’am camp

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 10 June 2009, 17:09 GMT]
Six hundred fifty three elderly Vanni internally displaced persons held in Cheddikul’am Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp in Vavuniyaa are to be released amid reports of rise of death of elderly IDPs detained in the camps in Vavuniyaa. Lists of names of elderly IDPs to be released are now displayed in Vavuniyaa District Secretariat and Cheddikul’am detention centre, media reports said.
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Health conditions among Vanni detainees deteriorate

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 June 2009, 16:22 GMT]
Vanni civilians held in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention centres in Jaffna and Vavuniyaa are suffering from serious health conditions due to lack of medicines, proper medical treatment and poor sanitary facilities, Jaffna Health Department sources said. A 29-year-old woman from Maamoolai, Mu’l’liyava’lai from Vanni held in Raamavil detention centre, suspected to be suffering from septicaemia, died on 6 May in Jaffna Teaching Hospital.
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Largest ammunition dump explodes in SLA Vavuniyaa camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 June 2009, 13:08 GMT]
Residents of Eerapperiyaku'lam in Vavuniyaa reported hearing loud explosions, and seeing fire from the ammunition dump of the 211- Due Command of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Vavuniyaa from 6:00 p.m. Tuesday. The explosions have been continuing for more than an hour, according to reports from Vavuniyaa. The ammunition dump is one of the largest used by the SLA, military observers said.
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IDPs occupying railway properties in Jaffna to be evicted

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 09 June 2009, 11:13 GMT]
Jaffna Government Agent (GA) has instructed all Internally Displaced People (IDPs) presently occupying railway stations and other railway properties including living quarters and the railway track areas from Thellippazhai to Kodikaamam to vacate them before 20 June, sources in Jaffna said. The government decision to resume train service from Vavuniya to Kaangeasanththu’rai soon and its directive to the GA is the reason for the urgent eviction order. The IDPs, more than 20,000 in number, are in a quandary as no alternate places for them to relocate have been arranged by the authorities, the sources added
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Sri Lanka refuses to allow Mercy Ship to unload relief

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 June 2009, 20:32 GMT]
Despite repeated appeals by the Directors of Mercy Mission, a humanitarian project with a ship loaded with relief items donated by expatriate Tamils in Europe to help Tamils caught up in the war in NorthEast, Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) has been detaining the Mercy Mission ship the MV “Captain Ali,” for more than three days, and is refusing to allow the 884 metric tons worth of relief items to be unloaded, sources close to the project said. Latest information indicates Colombo is moving towards returning the ship back to international waters, and force the ship to return to its origination port.
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JVP decides against contesting Jaffna MC

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 June 2009, 08:26 GMT]
The Sinhala extreme nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) said it has decided not to contest the election to the Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC). The decision was taken by the JVP politburo held on Wednesday. However, the JVP politburo is scheduled to meet next week to decide on contesting the Vavuniyaa Urban Council, party sources said.
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Elections to Jaffna MC, Vavuniyaa UC in August

[TamilNet, Friday, 05 June 2009, 08:24 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s Elections Secretariat announced that nominations from recognized political parties and independent groups for elections to the Jaffna Municipal Council and Vavuniyaa Urban Council would be accepted from June 18 till June 25. The date of polls to these local authorities are to be announced after 12:00 noon of June 25 after the closure of nominations, election officials said.
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Nomination date for Jaffna Municipal Council election announced

[TamilNet, Thursday, 04 June 2009, 21:02 GMT]
While 40 to 50 percent of Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) voters internally displaced or living in foreign countries, Jaffna election department has announced that the nominations for the forthcoming JMC elections have to be made from 18 to 25 June. The Election Commissioner will announce the date of the JMC election once the nomination lists have been tendered, sources in Jaffna said.
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Jaffna Bishop seeks release of 6 Catholic priests detained in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 June 2009, 14:02 GMT]
Jaffna Bishop Rt. Rev. Joseph Saundaranayagam has despatched a letter to Defence Secretary requesting the release of six Catholic parish priests who are being held in an unknown Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp in Vavuniyaa, sources in Jaffna said.
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Hunger strike of British Aid worker enters 16th day

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 03 June 2009, 04:48 GMT]
Tim Martin, director of Act Now, a rights group formed by former British aid workers in Sri Lanka, is on a hunger striek in Parliament Square, London, calling for intervention by U.S. and other Governments to protect the massacre-survivors from the Safety Zone in Mulliaththeevu, currently being interned in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) supervised camps in Vavuniyaa. Martin handed a letter to Mr Kerry McCarthy MP, and Mrs Kerry when they visited him, and asked the MP to hand over the letter to U.S. President Obama, well wishers at the Parliament square said.
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Colombo to issue finger print ID to Vanni civilians in custody

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 June 2009, 11:23 GMT]
All members of IDP families including children of over ten years of age who were forced to flee Vanni and detained by the Colombo government in Vavuniyaa internment camps are to be issued with special identity cards with their finger prints. Police with officials of the Presidential Secretariat are currently engaged in implementing the scheme.
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