COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
The team from the High Commission noted during their visit that there were no checkpoints in
Jaffna town. The drive along the A9 from Jaffna to Vavuniya revealed only three checkpoints;
the first at Elephant Pass, the second just south of Kilinochchi, and the third at Omanthai. At the
first two, barriers were raised to allow vehicles through without stopping. The Omanthai
checkpoint was the only checkpoint where vehicles were made to stop and occupants to
produce documentation. NGO and humanitarian agencies told us that this was mainly to check
whether the foreign employees of these organisations had the required MoD clearance to
enter/remain in the Vanni. Locals were allowed to pass freely.
Humanitarian
A Senior Military Official in Jaffna said that the SLA had been involved in humanitarian projects,
assisting in the building of 680 houses for IDPs. He added that 78,000 IDPs had returned to the
Jaffna District, only 50 had been previously resident outside of the district. He said that there
were no tensions between the IDPs and the resident community. With regard to transit camps,
he told us that there was only one in Jaffna district which currently held around 2,900 IDPs. He
added that they would require shelters when released.
With regard to ex-combatants the Senior Military Official in Jaffna merely repeated the
government line that these persons would only be released after re-habilitation. Although there
was still a camp at Tellippalai over 200 had been returned to their families. We were told that
none were being detained under the PTA, those that had been had either been released or
transferred out of the district.
A Senior Government Official in Jaffna stated that 70,000 IDPs had arrived in Jaffna from the
Vanni, Mullaitivu and Trincomalee before Christmas 2009 and been settled with the help of the
Sri Lankan Army. They had been given grants of Rs 5,000 (£29) on arrival and a subsequent Rs
20,000 (£116) through UNHCR. There remained camps containing 200 families, and
approximately 7,000 were in tents and temporary shelters waiting to return home. In total he
said that there were 52,000 war damaged houses that needed re-building.
A group of TNA MPs said that a majority of families remaining in camps had women as heads of
the family. They complained bitterly that the government would still not release the names of the
ex LTTE combatants currently detained. We were told that 46,000 were still in camps in the
Jaffna peninsular, and that whilst children were going to school, many were under-nourished
because the camps had ceased proving breakfast. They claimed there was a high rate of
malnutrition.
A Human Rights spokesman based in Jaffna said that 78,000 IDPs had returned to Jaffna. In
many cases they had just been returned and there had been no resettlement. Some of them
had received a settlement award of Rs 50,000 (£290). Many of them are still with host families.
They told us that there were no closed camps within Jaffna district for IDPs although they
thought that there was a closed camp in Palaly for ex-combatants.
A group of humanitarian aid workers told us that many IDPs, having returned to the district six
months ago were now struggling as they had no money. In many cases the host families were
not a welcoming as they had originally been. There were also complaints that many families
were unable to return to their homes because they were occupied by the military.
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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