COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
―The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has submitted a report to the Supreme Court (SC)
that detailed the HSZs in Jaffna which are still not made available to the original
inhabitants by the Sri Lankan government.
―The government earlier informed the court that 111,199 people from nearly 36,000
families from former HSZs in Jaffna have already been resettled.‖
24.10 As far as Kilinochchi is concerned, the BHC letter of 17 September 2011 478 noted:
―The Government Agent (GA) for Kilinochchi told us that resettlement was almost
complete, although there were still 4 DS [Divisional Secretary] divisions where demining
was taking place. Some IDPs from Menik Farm were therefore still living with families
within the district. The government was providing 6-9 months livelihood support where it
could, but there were gaps in this process. Food packages are still being handed to
families with elderly and disabled, especially where the head of household is disabled,
and to widows and orphans. We were told that 40,000 new houses were required in the
district and 20,000 were to be reconstructed.
―Livelihoods were the biggest issue on the GA‘s agenda and they were targeting dairy
production and paddy production for women heads of household. They recognise that
the agricultural infrastructure needs to be developed and the government has been
providing Rs 35,000 (£200) livelihood packages to individuals to get them started in
agriculture. Unfortunately these could not be given to families reliant on fishing, as the
cost of boats and equipment was much too high.‖
24.11 With regards to Mullaitivu, the same source 479 reported:
―We met the Mullaitivu Divisional Secretary (DS) and the development committee. They
informed us of the current situation in Mullaitivu. There was currently a population of
88,887, although 38,208 are waiting for resettlement. Demining is still taking place and
they hoped to be able to resettle most of those by December 2011. However, there
were 6 DS Divisions that had not yet been assigned demining by the government. The
Indian housing programme had begun and we visited a complex of 50 houses that were
being constructed in an area of land reclaimed from jungle. We met with the families
who had been allocated the houses, mainly families with female heads of household,
widowers and orphans. They were looking forward to moving into the houses, but were
concerned about how they were going to earn a living from the land. The main
challenge was that the land had no access roads, nor access to mainstream electricity
or water supply. We also spoke to construction workers who were building the houses
and noted that none of them had been recruited from within the district.
―The DS told us their plans to develop the district, but said they required funding to
complete much of the work. They told us that one of their main concerns was youth
unemployment, saying that many had left school during a time when infrastructures in
all sectors of industry had been destroyed and there were little or no employment
opportunities. The list of priorities for the district mainly involved the development of
agriculture and fishing industries; de-silting, cleaning lagoons, re-planting coastal
478 British High Commission, Colombo, letter dated 17 September 2011
479 British High Commission, Colombo, letter dated 17 September 2011
The main text of this COI Report contains the most up to date publicly available information as at 3 February 2012.
Further brief information on recent events and reports has been provided in the Latest News section
to 2 March 2012.
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