Governor rejects appeals from trapped Jaffna workers

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 08 November 2006, 01:07 GMT]
Rear Admiral (Retd) Mohan Wijeyawickrema, Governor of the North East Province (NEP), rejected Tuesday an appeal made by government employees including teachers from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held areas, now trapped in the Jaffna peninsula with the closure of A9 route since August 11, to let them stay in the peninsula due to unsafe conditions in their places of work, said civil sources from Jaffna.

The Governor instructed the said officials to return to their work places immediately and warned that failure to report for work would be counted as vacation of post, added the sources.

According to the Tuesday directive of the NEP Governor, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna is engaged in sending more than a thousand government officials and teachers, serving in the LTTE held Mullaithivu, Kilinochchi, Mannar and a part of Vavuniya, by ship to Trincomalee and from there to their respective work places.

The SLA made special arrangements Tuesday to send the trapped officers in stages by ship to Trincomalee from where they would be able to reach their places of work.

The government employees were asked to report at the Sinhala Maha Vidyalayam in Jaffna from where they would be taken to Kankesanthurai harbour and sent to Trincomallee.

Early November the NEP Governor rejected an appeal from the trapped government employees to find them temporary employment in the Jaffna peninsula.

The Governor also sent directives to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials in Jaffna not to allow any of the civilian-employees to work in the North.

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