Thaindian News

Colombo, Aug 11 (Xinhua) The Sri Lankan government has said the displaced people living at the relief camps in the country’s north would be allowed to leave only when the members of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels hiding at these centres are identified.
The attorney general in a written submission to the Supreme Court said Monday the officials are in the process of identifying the members of former rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The official told the court that the displaced people would be released from the camps only after the rebels are identified.

His submissions came in response to a complaint filed by the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a rights group, urging the release of displaced people from the relief camps run by the government in the northern districts of Jaffna and Vavuniya.

Around 300,000 Tamil civilians, a minority group in the country, were displaced during the final battles between the Sri Lankan soldiers and the LTTE in the northern part of the country. The government had pledged to resettle the displaced people within 180 days, starting May.

The LTTE had been fighting for more than two decades to carve out an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the country for more than two decades before they were defeated in May.