Most IDPs go home by December 31:

Resettlement of IDPs; Two-thirds complete

Dharma Sri Abeyratne

A total of 169,938 Internally Displaced Persons have been resettled in their native places within a short period providing them along with the provision of health, shelter, sanitary, education co-operative, water, electricity and other facilities in their villages, Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said.

“As a result of the speedy resettlement program the number of IDPs in welfare villages has come down to 112,062 from 282,000,” the Minister told a media briefing.

The Minister said that the Government has clearly shown the commitment to resettle the IDPs as quickly as possible.

The resettlement program for IDPs is in full swing achieving its set goals well within the expected time frame.

This might be a record for resettling IDPs. Most probably by December 31 the Government will resettle a large number of IDPs out of the remaining or else complete resettlement activities, Minister Samarasinghe added.

At present 105,664 IDPs are in Vavuniya, 1,738 IDPs in Jaffna, 2,298 IDPs in Trincomalee. Approximately 2,360 IDPs are receiving treatment in several hospitals. A total number of 112,062 IDPs are yet to be resettled.

However, the resettlement process in a way depend on the on-going de-mining activities. The Government has already put into operation 24 de-mining machines. It purchased 19 de-mining machines out of 24 while the UN has offered five machines.

In de-mining activities priority has been given to public roads, common places and villages earmarked for speedy resettlement.

Accordingly, public places, villages and many roads including A9, A32 roads and railway tracks are now free from land mines.

On the advice of President Mahinda Rajapaksa the Government has taken action to grant the IDPs freedom of movement from December 1.

Accordingly, 22,443 IDPs have gone away from their welfare villages. Out of this figure 9,778 have come back. “Any person can leave the welfare villages and return as they wish. No action will be taken against the persons who wont come back to IDP Villages. The freedom is not limited to 15 days,” Minister Samarasinghe noted.

The Minister rejected certain media reports that security forces personnel will go after the IDPs if they don’t come back.

“It is up to them to decide whether to return or not. What the Government did was to grant the freedom for them to move away as they wish. However, the Government is carrying out the welfare activities in welfare villages further as usual,” Samarasinghe said.