Students detained in Vavuniyaa camps to be used as showpieces

[TamilNet, Thursday, 17 September 2009, 05:55 GMT]
The students from Ki’linochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Vavuniyaa and Mannaar districts, now detained in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniyaa, are to be taken like prisoners under military and police guard to participate in a Sports Meet that is to be held in Jaffna Alfred Duraippa Stadium from Friday for three days, sources in Jaffna said. The students thus brought to Jaffna will be taken back to the SLA internment camps in Vavuniyaa at the end of the sports meet, the sources added.
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Vanni IDP detainees sent to Ampaa’rai detained again

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 14:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA), instructed by higher authorities, is constructing new detention centres to hold the Vanni Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) sent to Ampaa’rai district recently from Vavuniyaa SLA detention camps while the IDPs are being detained in the SLA camp located on Poththuvil road in Akkaraippattu, sources in Ampaa’rai said. The efforts made by Aalayadiveampu Pratheasa Chapai Secretary to handover the said IDPs to their relatives failed as the local SLA officer refused their release citing orders from above, the sources added.
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SL Government intends to detain IDPs in camps indefinitely

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 September 2009, 10:13 GMT]
Northern Province Governor, Major. Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri and Minister Douglas Devananda directed government officials in Jaffna to take immediate steps to bring Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Jaffna detained in Vavuniyaa camps to the detainment camps in Jaffna district and to send IDPs from Vanni detained Jaffna district to Vavuniyaa camps, according to the decision taken in the Jaffna District Coordination Committee held Tuesday in Jaffna Secretariat, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, the IDPs from the islets of Jaffna brought to Kaarainakar and Veala’nai Monday, on the assurance that they will be settled in abandoned houses, are kept in school buildings and Saiva temples until new detainment camps are established for them to move in, the sources added.
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8 Tamil civilians arrested in Thanthirimalai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 10:57 GMT]
Anuradhapura Police Monday arrested eight Tamil civilians in Thanthirimalai area in Anuradhapura district on suspicion. Police said a police party rushed to the site and took them into custody on information from the Sinhala villagers that some strangers were seen in the area.
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500 Vanni IDPs to be settled in the islets of Jaffna against their wish

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 05:05 GMT]
500 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) detained in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vaviniyaa were brought to Jaffna Monday and efforts are being made to settle them in the abandoned houses in the islets of Jaffna that are in the full control of Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), sources in Jaffna said. In the name of resettlement Vanni IDPs are being just relocated from the internment camps in Vavuniya against their wish to another area which is strictly controlled by another armed force, the SLN, civil society sources in Jaffna said.
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3 Tamil youths arrested in Mathavaachchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 13:19 GMT]
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers took into custody three Tamil youths in the last three days at the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Mathavaachchi checkpoint, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The youths were arrested for not being able to provide a valid reason for their travel to Colombo, the sources said.
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Blood stained body of woman recovered in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 10:27 GMT]
Vavuniyaa Police on information from public, Sunday afternoon recovered the blood stained body of a woman around fifty years of age inside the kitchen (madapa’l’li) of Kaa’li Koayil located at Kzhlumaaddu Junction in Vavuniyaa. The body was handed over to Vavuniyaa general hospital for postmortem examination and identification.
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Rivers of sewege cascade through tents in Menik farm - Guardian

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 September 2009, 01:55 GMT]
Cataloguing emerging stories of families destroyed by war and separated through internment in Sri Lanka's fortified camps, UK Guardian's Sunday story describes feeble attempts by the Government of Sri Lanka to resettle refugees criticized as "chaotic and underfunded." Malnutrition-related complications have resulted in increased deaths, the paper notes, and adds that doctors in Vavuniyaa have warned of "impending disaster if conditions do not improve." Humanitarian workers recently allowed in to Menik Farm had criticized "persistent water shortage," and described precarious health, inhumane conditions as "heavy rain sent rivers of sewage cascading through tents and tin sheds," the paper said.
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Unsuitable food for malnourished children in Vavuniyaa camps – Indian doctor

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 September 2009, 11:13 GMT]
Malnourished children in the camps for the Internally Displaced (IDPs) from Vanni and held in the camps in Vavuniyaa are being provided with unsuitable food for consumption, which could make their condition deteriorate further, according to Dr. Bose, an Indian doctor providing medical assistance to the IDPs, sources in Colombo said.
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BBC: UN patience wears thin in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Friday, 11 September 2009, 12:59 GMT]
The United Nations says it cannot continue to indefinitely fund the sprawling, overcrowded and militarized camp in which Sri Lanka has interned hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. Speaking to the BBC, the UN's Sri Lanka chief, Neil Buhne, said people should be allowed to leave the barbed wire-ringed Manik Farm camp. Mr Buhne also criticised Sri Lanka’s denial of access for the International Red Cross to 10,000 Tamils whom the government calls LTTE suspects. Meanwhile the UN says it is extremely concerned for two staff members arrested by Sri Lankan authorities in June, being amid reports they were mistreated during the early days of their detention.
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Channel-4 broadcast of internment camp conditions irks Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 September 2009, 00:11 GMT]
Following the broadcast of shocking video footage showing Sri Lanka Government soldiers executing Tamils stripped naked and hands tied behind their backs, British Television Channel-4 Monday revealed a new film that showed Tamil "victims of Sri Lanka's war suffering poor conditions in UN-funded camps." The new footage, allegedly taken by a mobile phone, was sent to Channel-4 from the group War Without Witness, and was reportedly shot two weeks ago in Vavuniyaa, in northern Sri Lanka, where more than 300,000 Tamils are being interned in Sri Lanka military supervised camps. Sri Lanka's spokesperson, while insisting that United Nations is active inside there [the camps], responded that the malnutrition statistics reflect "Western standards," indeed malnutrition is present in other parts of Sri Lanka, and also that the situation was worse under the Liberation Tigers.
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TNA's meeting with Rajapaksa fails to resolve IDP crisis

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 September 2009, 12:24 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians who held talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his ministers Monday evening at Temple Trees on the issue of resettling Vanni IDPs in their own places, said that the talks ended in failure as Mr. Rajapaksa evaded the main issue by saying resettlement of Vanni IDPs is not immediately possible as demining in Vanni has to be completed before resettlement. The urgent request to resettle the Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa internment camps before the monsoon rains was not given any due consideration by Rajapaksa and his ministers, TNA parliamentarians said.
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3 foreign Bishops visit Vavuniyaa IDP camps

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 September 2009, 11:44 GMT]
Bishop Monsvlovnni Battista from Italy and Bishop John Stanley Arnold and Bishop John Anthony Rawsthrone from the United Kingdom (UK) during the weekend visited the camps in the Menik farm and in Cheddiku'lam in Vavuniyaa where hundreds of thousands internally displaced people are held. The Caritas of Sri Lanka had organized the visit.
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SLA massacred civilians in bunkers - medical worker

[TamilNet, Monday, 07 September 2009, 08:57 GMT]
The advancing Sri Lanka Army massacred civilians by paving their bunkers with tanks, by throwing explosives inside the bunkers and by shooting the injured, says a medical worker who came out of Mu’l’li-vaaykkaal during the last days of the war, became incarcerated in a camp and now escaped the island. "Around a hundred thousand captured civilians herded to Mullaiththeevu were kept in rows within barbed wires, most of the time without water or food under the hot sun, and were bullied and ill treated with arrogance," he writes in a lengthy note that reached TamilNet this week. The note in Tamil was provided by the Norwegian Tamils Health Organisation (NTHO), urging TamilNet not to reveal the identity of the health worker for reasons of his security.
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1034 unaccompanied children in Vavuniyaa camps - NCPA

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 September 2009, 16:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) said Saturday that there are 1034 unaccompanied children in the camps where internally displaced people are held in Vavuniyaa. “Of the 1034 children 250 were handed over to close relatives while the guardianship of 300 children is yet to be determined. Another 300 were handed over to three orphanages - two in Vavuniyaa and the other in Mannaar,” Mr. Jagath Wellawatte, NCPA Chairman, said.
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Monthly 400 births in Vavuniyaa Menik IDP camp

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 September 2009, 08:04 GMT]
Four hundred babies are born every month in the internment camps at Menik Farm where nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians are held in Vavuniya district, and they are in need of considerable assistance and care, according to Sarvodaya leader Dr A. T. Ariyaretna. He presented the statistics when he was making a commemorative address in honour of Mother Theresa of Calcutta, at the SEDEC centre, Colombo Saturday.
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7 govt. officers with their families released from Pulmoaddai camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2009, 14:37 GMT]
Two more government officers who were working in Mullaiththeevu district during the war and later detained in Pulmoaddai internment camp in Trincomalee district were handed over to the Mullaiththeevu Government Agent Wednesday by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authority. They are Mrs. M. G. Vilvarajah, District Director of Planning in Mullaiththeevu and Mr. V. S. Theivendran, Mullaiththeevu Zonal Director of Education. Earlier, five staff officers, including Mr. K. Parthipan, Mullaitheivu Additional Government Agent, with their families, were released.
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Only 93 elders allowed to leave Vavuniyaa camp

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2009, 08:40 GMT]
Only ninety-three elders were allowed to leave the ‘internment camps’ in Vavuniyaa Wednesday despite earlier announcement that five hundred elders would be allowed to leave. Of the ninety-three, forty-six elders were handed over to the All Ceylon Hindu Congress (ACHC) and the rest to the elders’ home run by the Vavuniyaa-Koayil Ku’lam Sivan Koayil.
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5th Vanni doctor released on surety bail

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 September 2009, 17:15 GMT]
Dr. Kanagathurai Sivapalan who was serving in Puththukuddiruppu hospital in the Vanni region during the final assault on the LTTE by Sri Lanka Army was released on surety bail of a sum of 200,000 rupees by Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi Tuesday. He was the last in the batch of five doctors arrested from the internment camps in Vavuniyaa after they fled from the battle ground.
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Sri Lanka's cynical technique of rebuttal - Aussie Don

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 September 2009, 04:24 GMT]
Commenting on the recently exposed execution video, Professor Jake Lynch, Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict at Sydney University writes: "the Sri Lankan authorities assiduously kept journalists from international media away from the conflict zone, having, in the previous few years, terrorised local editors and reporters with arbitrary arrests, imprisonment and beatings, while many were mysteriously killed amid persistent rumours of official complicity. Now, the same authorities who have treated journalism with such contempt are seeking to keep information in the realm of contestability, through the cynical technique of rebuttal."
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