COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

SRI LANKA 7 MARCH 2012
Country of Origin Information Service
UK Border Agency
17 September 2011
Dear colleague,
Re: Sri Lanka: Development of Northern Province - update
The British High Commission in Colombo routinely monitors conditions in the Northern Province
in order to assess security and development. Staff from the mission visited the districts of
Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu from 15 – 18 August 2011.
Jaffna
The Government Agent (GA) in Jaffna told us that the district had recently been allocated Rs
29,000,000 (£163,000) from central government for development projects. They had received
many requests from the local population for toilet facilities and for drinking water (especially in
the islands), and for the creation or rebuilding of village tanks, to enable the collection of
rainwater for use on farmer‘s fields and domestic gardens. We were told that a total of 60,000
new houses are required within the district. An Indian housing scheme was set to build 7,400
homes. We asked if there were still High Security Zones (HSZ) in the district around Palaly and
the coastal areas. She told us that these had still not been released by the government, adding
that the programme to release the land back to former owners/occupiers had actually been
slowed down.
With regard to healthcare in the district, the GA told us that things were improving, although
many facilities were still short staffed. She said that there were few specialists and no
cardiologists. Although buildings had been allocated for development into healthcare facilities,
no takers or donors had come forward. Jaffna Teaching Hospital is hopeful that over 100
doctors will qualify this year and that many will be content to take up posts in the district. She
added though that an extra concern for healthcare in the district was the large military
population and their families using the facilities provided.
The GA provided the following statistics regarding children: As at 30 June 2011 there were a
total of 205,924 children living in Jaffna district. Of those, 7,743 had lost one parent and 417
had lost both parents. Statistics further showed that 1,177 had lost their parents in a terrorist
act, 438 had been abandoned by their parents and 1,413 were currently in children‘s homes.
There were only 114 children who did not have a birth certificate. Between 1 January 2011 and
30 June 2011 there were 92 recorded cases of child abuse in Jaffna District. In 38 of these
cases it involved sexual abuse and there were 6 cases of physical abuse. There were 16 cases
276 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.