Sri Lanka shuts war-time refugee camps

Wednesday, 26 September 2012 01:14 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Camps which housed 300,000 displaced people by the end of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict have now all closed, three years after the war ended, the military said on Tuesday.

Once one of the world’s biggest camps, the final batch of 361 families left Menik Farm in the northern district of Vavuniya on Monday, military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasekera said.

International rights groups described camps such as Menik Farm – the last to shut its doors – as internment facilities. They were strictly off-limits to journalists and private charities until recently.

Authorities called them “welfare camps” to shelter civilians.

“As of last evening, Menik Farm is formally closed because there are no more IDPs (Internally Displaced People),” Wanigasekera told AFP.

The final group of 1,186 people were from two villages in the district of Mullaittivu, in the north, where security forces fought their last battle with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, he said.

A major part of the Menik Farm facility was closed late last year, but a smaller section remained opened because some of the villages had not been de-mined to allow the safe return of civilians, Wanigasekera said. The Sri Lankan government said it spent $360 million to re-settle the war-affected civilians, with additional support provided by United Nations agencies and other donors.

Sri Lankan forces crushed the Tamil Tigers after decades of fighting in a military campaign which sparked allegations that thousands of civilians had also been killed, a charge denied by the military.

The Tamil Tigers had fought for an independent homeland for the island’s Tamil minority concentrated in the northern and eastern regions. The 37-year conflict claimed up to 100,000 lives, according to UN estimates.