SLA gives eviction order to Valalai resettIed IDPs

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 October 2004, 16:41 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has ordered about twenty families who had resettled 600 meters away from the high security zone in Valalai village Palaly, Jaffna district, to vacate their houses and lands immediately, civil sources in Jaffna said.

Disturbed residents told the Jaffna district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Mr.Suresh Premachchandran when he paid a visit to Valalai Thursday that they are harassed daily by SLA soldiers to leave the village, civil sources said.

About 225 resettled families are now living in Valalai village.

SLA soldiers are not allowing some of the resettled families to reconstruct their damaged houses, latrines and boundary walls, residents complained to Mr.Premachchandran.

Meanwhile, the SLA authorities have stopped an attempt to open a branch of the co-operative society in the village thus forcing the resettlers to walk several miles to buy provision for their day to day to life, sources said.

''I have seen several houses without roofs, damaged latrines and destroyed boundary walls,'' said Mr.Suresh Premachchandran on his return from Valalai village.