Most IDPs now resettled

by Shanika SRIYANANDA

There was no country in the world other than Sri Lanka that resettled over 275,000 displaced civilians in their own villages within a year, Competent Authority on Resettlement and Security Forces (SF) Commander Vanni Maj. Gen. Kamal Gunaratne said.

He said over 297,000 civilians, who were kept as hostages by the LTTE, sought safety from the Government until May 19, 2009 and were sheltered in welfare centres in Vavuniya, but within 12 months over 275,000 of them had been resettled in their own villages.

The SF Commander said of the 48 welfare centres, only five now remained, sheltering less than 20,000 IDPs.

"The Government has overcome some of the difficulties such as de-mining the former battlefields, providing safe shelter for the resettled people and restoring their livelihoods. Within a year, these issues have been successfully addressed", he said.

Over 1,200 Army soldiers were deployed to de-mine the former battle grounds in the North, where the LTTE had buried a large number of mines. Maj. Gen. Gunaratne said the Army had contributed to restoring normality in these villages by engaging in de-mining, assisting villagers to build their houses and providing them with facilities to re-start their livelihood activities. "Over 95 percent of the IDPs are now resettled in the North. Of the remaining, only 50 percent live in the camps. Others go out and stay with their relatives and comeback to the centres", he said.

He said the Army had helped the resettled people in Vavuniya, Ampara, part of Trincomalee, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu to build over a 1,000 new houses and to refurbish 800 houses.

The soldiers had also helped the resettled civilians to restore their livelihoods by clearing and de-mining agricultural land, distributing water pumps, cleaning agri-wells and irrigational systems and vaccinating cattle.

"The Army had also sponsored health camps in these villages with consultants brought down from Colombo. Recently a camp was conducted by Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Ruwan Ekanayake. We have distributed over a 1,000 artificial limbs under the Jaipur Foot project with the support of the Indian High Commission", he said. Some soldiers are also teaching in schools where there is a shortage of teachers.

"It was a gigantic task, but the well-planned projects of the Government helped overcome the issue of resettling IDPs within a short period of time. A major achievement was the Army identifying ex-LTTE cadre among the civilians and rehabilitating nearly 12,000 of them successfully.