COI Report March 2012 - UK Border Agency - Home Office

7 MARCH 2012 SRI LANKA
A Vice Chancellor from the University of Jaffna told us that in some of the older camps, a third
generation were growing up there. There was no plan for reconciliation or resettlement because
none was needed; these people did not know any other way of life.
A group of humanitarian aid workers said that there was a definite fear of Sinhalisation in the
Northern Province. Military camps contained Sinhalese soldiers and their families, new factories
were providing employment for Sinhalese workers from the south, floods of Sinhalese tourists
were in the area and Buddhist temples were being built. Furthermore there was also a fear that
the Chinese government who were building the road system would bring their own workforce
from China.
Access
A Senior Military Official in Jaffna confirmed that foreign nationals still required written
permission from the Ministry of Defence before entering the Northern Province, but once they
had received this they could travel freely. He added that there were 130 NGOs operating in the
Northern Province.
A Senior Military Official in Kilinochchi said that recently there had been an issue with one
foreign representative from an INGO. As a result the Ministry of Defence had introduced a new
system for all foreign workers of NGOs and Humanitarian Groups wanting to obtain clearance to
work in the Vanni region.
A Human Rights spokesman based in Jaffna told us that recently the authorities had
reintroduced a pass system to allow fishermen to get to the shoreline. They had to produce their
NIC and await military clearance. It was opined that this was corruption by officials who were in
cahoots with fishing mafias from the south.
The Senior Government Agent for Kilinochchi said she had not been informed of changes to
Ministry of Defence procedures regarding access for foreign humanitarian aid and NGO
workers.
We spoke to Mr S, a UK voluntary returnee who had returned to Jaffna in late 2008. He had
travelled on an Emergency Passport issued by the Sri Lankan High Commission in London and
on arrival did not possess a Sri Lankan national identity card (NIC). He told us that he had had
no problems travelling from Colombo to Jaffna. His application for a NIC took 6 months and he
added that he had given a Colombo address in order to speed up the process.
The High Commission team witnessed a large crowd of people in Kilinochchi attending the
mobile unit of the Registration of Persons Department. The unit was issuing birth and marriage
certificates, and national identity cards for those persons who had lost all of their identifying
documents when fleeing the conflict.
Economy
A Senior Military Official in Jaffna told us that there were plans for Jaffna (Palaly) Airport to be
expanded and used for domestic commercial flights. He added that ferries were due to start
running from India to Talaimannar in Mannar District. A British company were currently building
a bridge on the A32 road which would reconnect the Mannar road to the Jaffna peninsula. The
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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