Demining to expedite resettlement of IDPs

by Mohammed NAALIR

To expedite the resettlement of the Northern displaced people, the Army has commenced mopping up operations in the area to search for explosives, weapons and anti personnel mines buried in the North, the Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Risath Bathiudeen said.

Minister Bathiudeen expressed confidence that soon after removing the antipersonnel mines and other dangerous explosives, the IDPs would be resettled in their own habitats.

According to Ministry sources, the Japanese government has given a grant of US $ 1.4 million for demining activities in the North.

"We are progressing well in looking after a massive crowd of IDPs", he said.According to the Ministry sources there are five zones in Vavuniya district where the IDPs are housed in 22 welfare centres.

Accordingly 15,236 families numbering 46,458 persons in zone-01 (Anandakumarasuwamy Village), 28,138 families numbering 73,306 persons in zone-02 (Ponnambalam Ramanathan Village), 14,932 families numbering 42,812 persons in zone-03 (Arunachchalam Village), 13,918 families numbering 40,421 persons in zone-04 and 5,247 families numbering 18,829 persons in (Kadirgamar Village) are housed in these welfare centres.

Meanwhile, arrangements have been made to set up zone-5 to provide shelter for nearly 25,000 IDPs to minimise congestion in the existing centres.

Minister Bathiudeen said that several programmes had been commenced to improve health facilities for the IDPs.

Several new programmes have been introduced to avoid the spreading of epidemics like dengue and water borne diseases.

He said that health is one priority and a separate medical staff had been deployed to look after the health problems of these displaced people.

"The Government has successfully completed the `humanitarian war' to liberate the innocent Tamil civilians kept as hostages.

Now our main concern is to resettle these IDPs in their own areas soon", he said.

Minister said that the IDPs were given facilities to cook their own meals and the government provided the rations to them.