Colombo, Sept. 25 (ANI): A camp for displaced people in Sri Lanka, once one of the largest in the world, has been closed, officials said.
The final 1,160 residents in the Menik Farm camp, in the country's north, left on Monday.
The camp was created to accommodate Tamil civilians who were caught up in the violence of the final months of Sri Lanka's war in 2009.
According to the BBC, at one point, the camp housed nearly 300,000 people, displaced as the army pursued and annihilated the Tamil Tigers.
But the United Nations has praised the government's resettlement programme, with one official describing it as 'remarkable'.
According to the report, some 70 percent of those re-housed from the Menik camp have returned to their home area of Manthuvil, near the scene of the last fighting.
Others, however, have returned to a new site as the military has taken over their home village of Keppapilavu.
Sri Lankan Resettlement Minister Gunaratne Weerakoon said that there were several reasons why closing the camp had taken three years.
"Demining is still in progress in Mullaitivu district and some areas are not declared safe yet. Besides, material for home reconstruction has to be provided as many homes are nothing more than rubble and are not habitable," he added.
The Menik Farm camp was notorious because for several months its inhabitants were locked inside, not allowed to leave while the government screened them for possible links to the Tigers and tried to assess how sympathetic they were to the rebels, the report added.
It is not immediately clear what the Sri Lankan authorities plan to do with the site, which includes several schools and hospitals.
The government has said it will be made available for public purposes, the report added. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
