Batticaloa IDPs in Vavuniyaa transferred to transit camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 18:44 GMT]
The final and fifth batch of 785 members of 298 families among the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs)detained in Vavuniyaa internment camps since the fall of Vanni region to the Sri Lanka Army was sent to Batticaloa to be resettled in their own villages. They arrived in Batticaloa Sinhala Maha Vidiyalayam Wednesday morning in several buses under the escort of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).

The Sri Lanka armed forces and civil authority in the Batticaloa district immediately went to the Sinhala Maha Vidiyalayam and took control of the IDPs. Civil authority sources said they would be resettled in the former villages they occupied before they left to Vanni after being thoroughly screened by Sri Lanka armed forces.

Hitherto 2349 members of 847 IDP families held in Vavuniyaa internment camps were brought to Batticaloa in four batches and were resettled in their former villages, sources said.