Netherlands Ambassador to Sri Lanka visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 21:19 GMT]
Netherlands Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Leoni Cuelenare and an official, Gerrit Noordam from the Embassy were in Jaffna Wednesday where they held detailed discussion on matters related to the rehabilitation of Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, sources in Jaffna said. Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh, Director of Planning, Pratheepan and high SLA officers took part in the discussion.
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Acute health problems among children in Vavuniyaa IDP internment camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 14:23 GMT]
Twenty-five percent of children in IDP camps in Vavuniya suffer from acute malnutrition while 40 percent of them are anaemic, according to a report on Nutrition Among Post Conflict Displaced Children in Vavuniya. The report further says that 41.9% of the children have diahorreal diseases and 17.2% are low weight babies.
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Tamils facing “cultural annihaliation” by SL Government: Australian Politician

[TamilNet, Thursday, 08 October 2009, 05:10 GMT]
“It may be argued that the Tamil people have a legitimate right to self-determination but what is essential now is that we must see an end to the oppressive and discriminatory policies of the victorious Sri Lankan Government” urged Greens MLC Ian Cohen in an address to the Australian Parliament on September 24th. Highlighting the “potential humanitarian catastrophe” faced by almost 300,000 refugees who “despite their desire and capacity to return home they are being held prisoner”, Cohen described the Governments treatment of Tamils as “a litany of injustice, cultural annihilation and human rights atrocities”. Meanwhile, a Tamil NGO official in Vavuniyaa, while welcoming the interest of Australian politicians, said they should also come forward to "first address the question of double standards, employed by their government, between issues such as East Timor and Eezham.”
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Colombo has plans to colonize North with Buddhist Sinhalese – Suresh Premachandran

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 October 2009, 17:06 GMT]
The government of Sri Lanka is actively engaged in colonizing Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Jaffna district with Sinhalese Buddhists in order to crush the demand for Eelam in the traditional homelands of the Tamils in the North, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian, said in a press meet held Monday in his Jaffna office. He further accused the government for not accepting help from International Community in de-mining Vanni as it does not want the persons from foreign countries to see the mass graves of civilians killed by its armed forces in the Vanni during the war. The MP also said that though the government says that it had resettled 40,000 IDPs from Vavuniyaa internment camps, 95% of them have been again detained in new internment camps in their respective home districts under the direct control of Sri Lankan forces.
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UNHCR helps stranded pregnant IDPs to leave Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 October 2009, 15:28 GMT]
Officials of the UNHCR Monday sent a batch of 124 pregnant IDPs with their relatives to Jaffna. They had been staying in the wedding hall of the Vavuniyaa Sivan Koayil from September 29 since the refusal of permission by the Sri Lanka stating that they were not issued with proper clearance by the civil authority.
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CID arrests 3 Tamil youths at Medawachchiya

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 October 2009, 19:24 GMT]
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of Sri Lanka has arrested three Tamil youths, two of them on Sunday and the third on Monday at Medawachchiya check point while they were on their way to Colombo from Vavuniyaa, according to their relatives.
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2000 IDPs in Menik Farm camp identified with special needs

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 16:21 GMT]
Around two thousand Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) detained in Zone 3 camp in Menik Farm alone in Vavuniyaa have been identified with special needs. Among them are children, women and others who have lost limbs, eye sight, and hearing in the war. Some children born with deformity have also been identified in Zone 3 camp, civil authorities in Vavuniyaa said.
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Sri Lanka's internment camps for Tamils: experience of an inmate

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 09:37 GMT]
South Asia has never witnessed such a large scale, state-organized crime as one committed on Eezham Tamils by the government of Sri Lanka. Perhaps the world has never witnessed hitherto that such a crime of internment camps for civilians could be initiated collectively by all the powers of the world and the UN, and could be left like this without anyone being able to do anything about it. A civilian woman who was a captive in the Zone 3 of the internment camp of Menik Farm for four months, and managed to come out by ‘other means’ a month ago, writes on her experience in the camp – an indelible shame for the so-called civilised world.
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IDP pregnant mothers stranded in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 04:02 GMT]
124 internally displaced families including several pregnant mothers who were allowed to leave Menik Farm in Vavuniyaa to go to their places in Jaffna on September 29 are stranded in Vavuniyaa town without Sri Lanka Army (SLA) clearance to proceed to Jaffna. These IDPs were brought down from Menik Farm on September 29 and dropped at Vavuniyaa bus stand the same day midnight, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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Bank officer released, wife under detention

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 October 2009, 03:58 GMT]
The wife of a Tamil State bank officer Mr. V. Gnanorathan is still being held in detention by the State Intelligence Unit of the Sri Lanka Army. Gnanorathan was released Saturday. Wellawatte police arrested both a few days ago from their residence in Wellawatte on information received following the arrest of medical specialist Dr. Maheswaran Umakanth serving in Vavuniyaa general hospital.
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IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps cannot settle in Jaffna without SLA clearance

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 October 2009, 16:06 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Jaffna held in Vavuniyaa camps, on their release from the camps, cannot get back to Jaffna without obtaining the ‘clearance’ of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna, according to Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh. 30 expectant mothers and their families released from Vavuniyaa camps are from Jaffna and their particulars have been submitted to the SLA authorities in Jaffna, he further said. However, he did not say anything about their fate if SLA refuses permission for them to be brought to Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said.
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Each IDP family in Vavuniyaa camp gets only 15 liter water daily – JVP

[TamilNet, Sunday, 04 October 2009, 08:57 GMT]
The Monitoring Centre of the Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps said Saturday that it had received 723 complaints so far relating to food, clothes, and health and toilets facilities. The monitoring centre is set up by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). The convener of the centre Mr.Wijitha Herat, JVP parliamentarian, said fifteen liters of water are supplied to each family per day to meet all needs.
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Duplicitous Colombo bereft of excuses on holding internees - ICG

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 October 2009, 22:25 GMT]
Andrew Stroehlein, International Crisis Group's Communications Director, during his testimony to the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights on the situation in Sri Lanka Thursday, noted the poor and deteriorating conditions in the internment camps where more than 264,000 Tamils are being held by Colombo, and said, "[t]he worst kind of duplicity was seen just a few weeks ago, when the [Sri Lanka] government announced it had released 10,000 displaced persons. In fact, we know at least 3,300 people had been moved from an internment camp to another detention facility," and added, "Sri Lankan government has run out of excuses for continuing to keep these hundreds of thousands of innocent people prisoner."
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SLN camps in the islets worse than Vavuniyaa internment centres

[TamilNet, Saturday, 03 October 2009, 04:10 GMT]
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) hastily brought to the islets of Jaffna and held in Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) makeshift camps complained that they are detained in roofless houses without sufficient drinking water and basic facilities, sources in Jaffna said. The government which is only interested in relocating the IDPs in Vavuniyaa in the islets of Jaffna in a hurry to avoid congestion has left them in the hands of SLN without providing them any assistance, civil society sources in Jaffna said.
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No signs of Jaffna IDPs in Vavuniyaa to be brought to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 11:30 GMT]
Only after bringing the entire Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the islets of Jaffna held in Vavuniyaa camps the IDPs from Vadamaraadchi East will be brought, Jaffna Government Agent (GA), K. Ganesh said. Of around 6,000 Islet IDPs held in Vavuniyaa camps nearly 3,000 have been brought in different batches until Wednesday to the islets of Jaffna where they are again detained in camps under the control of Sri Lanka Navy, sources in Jaffna said.
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Internment, poisoning hopes of reconciliation - Economist

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 October 2009, 05:29 GMT]
"The fate of a quarter of a million interned Tamils is poisoning Sri Lanka’s hopes of ethnic reconciliation....So long as Tamils feel abused by a racist Sinhalese state, the conflict may resume. Economic development of their shattered regions, which the government is planning, is unlikely to change that. Hence the government’s continued war-footing—but this is in turn also reinforcing Tamil grievances," a feature in the 1st October edition of The Economist said,
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Vavuniyaa camps meant for detainees, not for IDPs - JVP

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 October 2009, 17:51 GMT]
“It is not a refugee camp if inmates are escaping from that in large numbers. Then it should be called a detention or internment camp. IDP families have freedom to move in and out from IDP camps which are established under international norms. It is not so in Vavuniyaa camps, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian Wijitha Herat, said at a press briefing held at JVP headquarters in Battaramulla in Colombo Wednesday to discuss matters about the plight of IDPs in Vavuniyaa camps.
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Medical doctor arrested in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 October 2009, 13:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Wednesday night arrested a visiting physician of the general hospital in Vavuniyaa, Dr. Maheswaran Umakanth, at his official residence in Kuruma'nkaadu, according to medical sources in the town.
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IDP from Vavuniyaa camp arrested by Kandy Police

[TamilNet, Thursday, 01 October 2009, 02:31 GMT]
A member of an IDP family that fled from Vanni during last leg of military operation and detained in internment camp in Vavuniyaa was arrested by a special team of the Kandy police Sunday. The police team acting on the directions of Deputy Inspector Generals of Police Gamini Navaratne and Pujitha Jayasundara rushed to Chettikulam from Kandy and took the suspected IDP into custody, Police spokesperson Nimal Mediwake told media.
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IDPs to be held in the islets of Jaffna for indefinite period

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 September 2009, 11:24 GMT]
Around 3,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), originally from the islets of Jaffna held in the internment camps in Vavuniyaa and brought to the islets of Jaffna recently will be continued to be held in detention camps under the control of Sri Lanka Navy, Jaffna Government Agent, K. Ganesh said. The IDPs will be allowed to go their residences only if Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities issue the necessary clearance to them, he said.
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