Government expelling tsunami victims from refugee camps
Colombo (AsiaNews) – The Sri Lankan government is using threats and blackmail to force tsunami victims to leave the camps where they found refugee in order to be able to say on 26 December, third anniversary of the tragedy, that everyone displaced by the event has been resettled.
“The government has cut power and water supply to existing camps in the district of Colombo. In the district of Matara in the south of the country government officials have warned refugees to leave before 23 December,” said Sugala Kumarie, coordinator for the People's Planning Commission (PPC). “The government wants to boast that Sri Lanka is the country that has best dealt with the problem of tsunami-displaced people.”
“On 18 December in the Kothalawalapura camp, just outside Colombo, village officials, police and people from the Provincial Secretariat as well as others threatened all the residents and told them to leave by 23 December,” said Saranapala Da Silva, another PPC official.
“Yesterday Provincial Secretariat officials told us to leave,” D. Sepalika, a camp resident and a widowed mother of five, said on the phone. “They said if we did not leave we would lose the 250,000 rupees (US$ 2,275) it promised us a few days ago. But we don’t know where to go. About 20 families live here. Six of them can stay though because they depend from another secretariat.”
The money in question is compensation for damages caused by the tsunami. “A few days ago the provincial secretariat told us to sign an affidavit acknowledging receiving 250,000 rupees as a final compensation and pledging that we would leave the camp by 26 December,” Sepalika said. “But I and others only got 50,000 rupees (US$ 450). They told us they would give us the rest next week.”
Like Sepalika, Janitha and Mainona are also tsunami refugees. “With the money we got we can build a house but we don’t have the land to build it on,” they said. “the government doesn’t care about the problems of people like us. It only wants us to obey its orders and use the 50,000 rupees to leave the camp and go who knows where with all of our things.”
The PCC appealed to Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa, the provincial secretary and other people in positions of power to let the refugees stay in the camps until they find a place where they can finally settle.
“It is really sad to know that there are still 15 camps for tsunami refugees in the district of Colombo, and five more in the district of Matara. Not to mention thousands more in the country’s north-eastern region.”
According to the PCC another 2,000 families made homeless by the tsunami and the war are in the district of Trincomalee and 3,000 in the district of Batticaloa.
Life in the camps is precarious with all sorts of problems. In the Kothalawalapura camp the head of the family has been arrested for dealing in drugs and stealing in at least seven cases as they tried to provide something to their families. But for Sugala the government is more concerned with expelling these people rather than taking care of them.
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