The Ceylon News

The Sri Lankan Government on Friday said 68,270 Tamil civilians have crossed over from the LTTE-held territories in the island's embattled North to the government-controlled areas in the last over three months.

"As many as 68,270 Tamil civilians have crossed over from the LTTE-controlled territories to the government held areas since January this year," Minister of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Rishad Badiuddin said here today.

Badiuddin said of these civilians, as many as 57,930 people are temporarily residing in 30 welfare centres and two IDP villages in Vavuniya, while others are settled in Mannar, Jaffna and Chalai camps.

Addressing the media here, he said the government has made all arrangements to provide the necessary facilities to these civilians.

It may be recalled that only 815 Tamils crossed over to the Army-held areas during the truce period on Monday and Tuesday.

The minister said three committees have been appointed to look after the welfare of these persons. While the first committee will look into their food requirements, the second is entrusted with providing infrastructure such as health, education and drinking water and the third will see the construction of temporary houses.

The government said it has delivered over 1200 metric tonnes of food and other essential items to Mullaittivu in the first week of April.

Meanwhile, a report said all efforts are on to provide facilities for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing Mullaittivu and coming into the Jaffna camp.

In March itself, over 3,000 IDPs fled the Wanni and arrived in Jaffna. Tents were pitched in some camps to accommodate the IDPs until the construction of proper shelter units is complete, said a report of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee for Sri Lanka.

It said a new site, Palmyra Research Camp, has been identified, where 106 individual shelter units have been constructed for people coming from Mullaittivu to Jaffna and it will be extended to accommodate up to 1,500 IDPs.

Meanwhile, the Lankan Government has decided to provide telecommunication facilities to welfare camps and villages in Vavuniya.

Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said this facility would enable the Tamils to establish contacts with their relatives.

"We put in place a new system through which displaced families are identified and arrangements are in place to expedite their reunification," Samarasinghe said.

Over 1,108 families were reunited under this program and officials have identified more than 100 such families seeking reunification with their family members, he said.