Prompt sustenance to civilians fleeing Tigers

Chaminda Perera

The Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Ministry provides a food pack comprising biscuits, glucose and energy drink to all civilians fleeing from the uncleared areas at the entrance to the Government controlled areas.

Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Minister Rishad Badiudeen said over 35,000 civilians who had come to the cleared areas were accommodated in 12 temporary welfare centres set up at Government schools and Colleges of Education in Vavuniya and Omanthai. The Minister said buses have been deployed to take the civilians from the last entry point to Vavuniya after the registration process is completed.

The construction of three out of the five welfare villages proposed by the Government to accommodate these civilians are in progress.

Each family will be settled in a temporary house built in these welfare villages till the mine clearance in their original lands in the Killinochchi and Mullaitivu districts is complete, the Minister said.

He said the construction of main bridges in the Northern Province is underway and arrangements have been made to provide electricity to the Mankulam area within a week.

The Minister was hopeful that Muslims who were subject to ethnic cleansing by the LTTE in the 1990s will be able to settle in their original lands.

“I am a member of the Muslim community which was chased by the LTTE from Mullaitivu . Over 100,000 Muslims who were evicted from their original lands from Mullaitivu are now living in welfare camps in the Puttalam district”, the Minister said. He said there will be a conducive environment soon for them to live in Mullaitivu with dignity.