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| Sunday, 10 February 2002 |
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Government plans rehabilitation of refugees here, India by P. Krishnasamy The UNF government in a bid to rehabilitate and resettle refugees and displaced persons island-wide, particularly in the North and East, is now formulating a comprehensive programme, Minister of Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Refugees, Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, told the "Sunday Observer". A national survey was being conducted to get comprehensive details of refugees and displaced persons, and the government had directed the Sri Lankan Deputy High Commission in Chennai to obtain figures of Sri Lankan refugees living in welfare centres, camps and elsewhere in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, he said. The Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Refugees Ministry will make arrangements for those refugees and displaced persons in India to return to Sri Lanka when normalcy is restored here. The Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) leader and former Chief Minister of the North-East Provincial Council (now defunct), R. Varatharaja Perumal, who returned to the country during the last general election after his self-imposed exile in India, told the "Sunday Observer" that an estimated 160,000 Sri Lankan refugees were in India - 60,000 in camps and welfare centres and 100,000 outside the camps in Tamil Nadu. The refugees in camps and welfare centres received a cash-dole which was adequate only to meet their bare necessities, while a good percentage of the nearly 100,000 persons living elsewhere in Tamil Nadu were at the mercy of relatives abroad, political sources said. The refugees have constantly complained about the abject misery in camps. But with the proposed peace talks between the Government and the LTTE, the camps and welfare centres are hopeful that this time round, peace would really dawn, the sources said. These refugees were eagerly waiting return to their homes in the North and East as early as possible, the sources said. |
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