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| Sunday, 2 June 2002 |
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Repatriation of refugees : Minister to meet Jayalalitha by P. Krishnasamy Minister of Rehabilitation, Resettlement and Refugees, Dr. Jayalath Jayawardene, will meet Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms Jayalalitha Jayaram, in Chennai this month for talks on repatriation of the large number of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu. Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner in Chennai, S. Nakandula, will be making arrangements for these talks. The Minister's itinerary will include visits to most of the 111 refugee camps in which the Sri Lankan refugees are housed and meetings with high ranking immigration, naval and other government authorities. Meanwhile spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Mike DeSisti, told the Sunday Observer that according to a survey conducted by NGOs, there were a total 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu and a two-third of them, viz:66,000, were housed in refugee camps and welfare centres. The UNHCR was concerned about the welfare of these refugees and was negotiating with the governments of India and Sri Lanka and the LTTE in order to reach a tripartite agreement so that the ground work for future large scale repatriation of them could be laid. Regarding the pull out of the government forces from temples and schools in the North and East, Minister Jayawardene said that this process will be completed soon. The forces were in occupation of some 300 Hindu temples and shrines and 67 schools in the North and East as on February 22, D-Day. The forces had vacated most of the schools already. |
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