Vanni IDPs held in Thenmaraadchi to be settled in Army HSZ in Vadamaraadchi

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 November 2009, 16:33 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from earlier Liberation Tiger controlled areas in Vadamaraadchi East beyond Naakarkoayil detained in Mirusuvil and Kodikaamam IDP camps in Thenmaraadchi are to be settled in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) High Security Zone (HSZ) in Ma’nattkaadu in Vadmaraadchi, according to Maruthangkea’ni Assistant Government Agent (AGA), S. Sriskantharajah. Ma’nattkaadu, Ampan and Kudaththanai villages are located in the HSZ where people are not permitted to move freely by the occupying SLA soldiers, sources in Vadamaraadchi said.
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IDPs taken to Vanni not allowed residing in their homes

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 November 2009, 06:42 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) does not permit the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) taken to Poonakari and Thu’nukkai in Vanni to reside in their houses but keep them lodged in the school buildings, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA in Jaffna takes a group of teachers to these areas and brings them back daily in buses claiming that they teach the children of the IDPs. This is but an attempt by the government to show that the released Vanni IDPs are leading a normal life as it is not possible to conduct educational activities in schools occupied by IDPs, education officers in Jaffna observed.
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More Batticaloa IDP families released for resettlement in their villages

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 November 2009, 17:49 GMT]
Fifty-one Internally Displaced Persons of eighteen families held in camps in Jaffna district were sent to Batticaloa Thursday by three state sector buses thorough A9 road. They are now given shelter in Batticaloa Sinhala Maha Vidiyalayam. They would be resettled in their villages in the district after screening by armed forces and police intelligence unit, sources in Batticaloa said.
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SLA continues detention of IDPs in Kaithadi camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 November 2009, 05:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna continue to detain a group of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) including female undergrads of Jaffna University though action is taken to close all IDP camps in Jaffna and to detain the remaining IDPs in Raamaavil camp in Thenmaraadchi, sources in Jaffna said. Though the relatives of the above IDPs in Jaffna had applied to take responsibility of the IDPs they are continued to be held as SLA has not issued the needed ‘clearance’ to release them, Jaffna Government Agent said.
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President calls Jaffna government heads for urgent meeting in Colombo

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 November 2009, 05:23 GMT]
Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse has invited the top government officials in Jaffna District including the Government Agent (GA), Divisional Secretaries and Additional Government Agents for an urgent meeting at his official residence Temple Trees Thursday 6:00 p.m, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. This meeting taking place on the occasion of the President completing his fourth year of term and the presidential election expected to be announced any time has raised speculations among Jaffna peninsula residents.
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IDP camps in Jaffna to be closed, retaining Thenmarraadchi camps

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 16:22 GMT]
Sri Lanka government has decided to close the Jaffna camps in which Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are detained while retaining Kodikaamam and Mirusuvil camps in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna Secretariat sources said. According to this plan 68 persons from Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi districts who had no relatives to take responsibility of them were transferred to Thenmaraadchi camps Wednesday from Koappaay Teachers’ College, the sources added.
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CID arrest heads of resettled IDP families – TNA parliamentarian

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 09:18 GMT]
Unidentified persons without uniform posing as personnel of Criminal Investigation Department arrest heads of IDP families who have been resettled in their own villages after detention in camps located in Vavuniyaa. These persons do not provide receipts to their relatives when they remove heads of their families, complained Mr. K. Thurairatnasingham, Trincomalee district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, in parliament Tuesday.
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Police instruct resettled Vanni IDPs in Batticaloa to re-register

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 05:16 GMT]
Police have requested all resettled Vanni internally displaced families in Batticaloa district to re-register them in the respective police stations immediately, sources in Batticaloa said.
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'Norway finances humiliation of Tamils'

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 November 2009, 03:18 GMT]
Norway is up to appease Colombo as the Tamil Tigers are out of the picture and the only way to do this is abetting Colombo’s discrimination of Tamils in the line of Iran, Burma and China, writes Professor Øivind Fuglerud of the University of Oslo adding that a revealing cue comes from Norway insensitively sponsoring a Buddhist organisation to conduct a music festival on 27th November in Galle, timed to humiliate Tamils on the Heroes' Day. Norway sat silently like a mouse in the final phase of the war. Now its ‘humanitarian’ aid helps the internment camps of captivity and death. In future Norway’s aid may be integral to Colombo’s military complex cum Buddhist temple infrastructure to dominate Tamil areas, he further says. Not surprisingly, Norway's leading news agency, NTB, on Monday came out with biased reporting on the first ever democratically elected council of diaspora Tamils.
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Vanni IDPs in Thenmaradchi camps to be settled in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 17:03 GMT]
2010 persons belonging to 624 families from the districts of Mullaiththeevu and Ki’linochchi in Vanni who still remain in the interim camps in Thenmaraachi are to be settled in Jaffna as no relatives or friends had come forward to take the responsibility of looking after them, Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh told media. The government, faced with limited relief resources to maintain the Vanni IDPs in Thenmaraadchi, is trying to get them off its hands, NGO representatives in Jaffna said.
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76 IDP bodies in Vavuniyaa hospital to be buried at State expense

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 November 2009, 15:48 GMT]
Seventy-six bodies of IDPs who died during the last three months are lying in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa general hospital as no one had come forward to claim them and do the last rites. Forty of them are new born babies while rest belongs to elders and women dead due to natural causes and during delivery, hospital sources said.
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Moothoor east IDP families suffer without proper shelters

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 November 2009, 15:56 GMT]
One hundred and two Tamil displaced families who are not allowed to resettle in their villages Kadatkaraichcheanai and Champoor in Moothoor east which have been declared high security zone (HSZ) since the fall of Moothoor east to Sri Lanka Army in 2006 April, are undergoing untold hardships without permanent structures to live. They had first fled and sought refuge in Batticaloa.
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SLA refuses permission to Minister Douglas Devananda to take IDPs to Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 November 2009, 16:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Thenmaraadchi in Jaffna peninsula refused permission Thursday when Jaffna based Sri Lanka Minister Douglas Devananda tried to take Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who were evicted when SLA occupied Thenmaraadchi in 1990 to show their villages where they are to be resettled, sources in Jaffna said. Hundreds of men and women taken by Minister Douglas Devananda had to return disappointed to their camps or to the houses of relatives where they have been staying for more than 18 years being turned back at Aasaippi’l’ai Eattam near Ezhuthumadduvaa’l in Thenmaraadchi, the sources added.
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SLA erects minicamps, sentry posts in interior parts of Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 November 2009, 18:20 GMT]
Fear and suspicion have risen among the residents of Jaffna peninsula as Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna is actively engaged in hastily setting up minicamps and sentry posts manned by small groups of soldiers in the interior parts of Jaffna peninsula, sources in Jaffna said. Though SLA has announced that it is removing its sentry posts near the schools in Jaffna Town they are not being removed but relocated in the interior areas, civil society representatives pointed out. SLA continues to occupy Gnanam Hotel and Subhas Hotel in the heart of the town while it refuses to open Clock Tower Road, Power House Road and Victoria Road in the town for public use, they added.
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Jaffna, an open prison since SLA occupation – Southern media persons

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 November 2009, 05:27 GMT]
A group consisting 27 media persons from the South brought to Jaffna by the Peace Congress Sunday told media in Jaffna that after 13 years of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupation Jaffna peninsula remains an open prison for its residents, before leaving Jaffna Monday. People lock themselves into their houses after dark and are subjected to various restrictions violating their freedom of movement, expression, imposed by SLA, they further said.
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Government has to get the support of the South first to solve Tamil ethnic issue – Vasudeva Nanayakkara

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 06:28 GMT]
Senior Advisor to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse and a veteran Sinhalese politician, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, said that the government has to get the support of the people in the South of the country to solve the problems of the Tamils, in response to questions raised by the members of Jaffna Traders’ Association (JTA) in a meeting held Saturday evening in the JTA building in Jaffna. The members had asked as to why it was not possible to carry out the Supreme Court directive to resettle the IDPs from Valikaamam North in their own places now occupied by Sri Lanka Army while the Supreme Court order to demerge Northern and Eastern provinces had been executed overnight.
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Last of the Jaffna IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps brought to Jaffna – Jaffna GA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 08 November 2009, 05:59 GMT]
The assignment of bringing Jaffna IDPs in Vavuniyaa to Jaffna has been completed with the arrival of 3,588 persons of 1,114 families Saturday night in Jaffna, according to Jaffna Government Agent (GA) K. Ganesh. Meanwhile, a group of media persons from the South led by Jegan Perera, the Director of Peace Congress, has been allowed by the government to come to Jaffna independently after the closure of A9 land route by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in 2006, sources in Jaffna said.
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Vanni IDPs suffer in flooded Vavuniyaa camps

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 November 2009, 16:56 GMT]
Most of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps for Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa being flooded due to the current down pour many of the IDPs held in Menik Farm camp had fled from their shelters seeking refuge in the public halls and school buildings located inside the camp, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Meanwhile, amid heavy rains and thunder civil authorities continue to transfer IDPs from Menik Farm during nights and drop them in public places in areas where their homes are located.
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Vasudeva Nanayakkara to deliver speech titled “Tamils and Future” in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 18:20 GMT]
Vasudeva Nanayakkara, a senior Sinhalese politician and the senior advisor to President Mahintha Rajapakse, who arrived in Jaffna Friday is to deliver a speech titled “Tamils and Future” Saturday at Changkaraththai Hindu Youths’ Hall in Vaddukkoadai, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, Vasudeva Nanayakkara met Jaffna district High Court Magistrate R. T. Vicknarajah in Jaffna Court Complex Friday where the magistrate stressed on the importance of resettling Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Valikaamam North evicted nearly 19 years ago by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in order to establish High Security Zones (HSZ) in the said area, the sources added.
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35,000 IDP students still held in Vavuniyaa internment camps

[TamilNet, Friday, 06 November 2009, 09:15 GMT]
Thirty-five thousand students displaced from Vanni in the last leg of war are still being detained in internment camps in Vavuniyaa. The number of IDP students in these internment camps earlier was about 65,000. The number had dropped to 35,000 following current resettlement, education authority sources claim.
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