Resettled families urge not to stop issue of dry ration

[TamilNet, Monday, 21 March 2005, 15:05 GMT]
Hundreds of residents of Islets in the Jaffna district Monday held a demonstration in front of the Velanai divisional secretariat demanding that they should be provided with dry ration without interruption instead of taking steps to suspend it, civil sources said.

The protest began around eight in the morning blocking the main entrance of the DS office preventing employees entering it. Later protestors handed over a memorandum to the DS officials and dispersed after about an hour, sources said.

People of islets were displaced in 1990 following military operation launched by the Sri Lanka Army. With the signing of the ceasefire agreement by then government and the LTTE, majority of the displaced have returned to islets and have been living on the dry ration since then. Now officials of the divisional secretariat are taking steps to stop the issue of dry ration to resettled families. Hence the Monday protest was organized by resettled families demanding that they should be issued with dry rations without interruption, sources said.