04/19/2012, 00.00
SRI LANKA - INDIA
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New Delhi calls on Rajapaksa to resettle people displaced by civil war

by Melani Manel Perera
An Indian parliamentary delegation visits Settikulam refugee camp (Northern Province). Sri Lanka's Minister of Resettlement announces that its 6,500 refugees will be home by June. Still about 200,000 more remain.

Colombo (AsiaNews) - India is "determined" to convince the government of Sri Lanka to resettle the 200,000 internally displaced people still left in camps following the end of the country's civil war, an Indian parliamentary delegation indicated yesterday during its six-day visit to the island nation during which it visited a refugee camp in Settikulam (Northern Province).

During the visit, Sri Lanka's Minister of Resettlement Gunaratne Weerakoon, who accompanied the lawmakers in their visit, said that the 6,500 war-displaced Tamils still in the camp would go home by June this year.

"We would like to draw attention to a request we made about resettling the war displaced to their original homes," said N S B Chinthan, a member of the Indian Lok Sabha (lower house).

During their visit, the 12-member delegation will meet Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa as well as representatives of the country's main Tamil parties.

Congress party lawmaker Sudarshana Natchchiappan said that visit will be helpful "to understand the stand that these parties take on certain issues," like that of displaced people.

Between 1983 and 2009, Sri Lanka was plunged in a bloody civil war between the government and rebels from the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Elam (LTTE), who fought for an independent state in the country's predominantly Tamil Northern and Easter Provinces.

Rapidly, the war turned into an ethnic conflict that ended only with the defeat of the rebels. Losses were staggering.

In a controversial United Nations report, which accused Sri Lanka of war crimes, at least 40,000 civilians were killed as a result of air strikes in the last phase of the war alone (2005-2009).

Despite the end of hostilities, some 200,000 people remain in refugee camps.

Photo by BBC correspondent Dinasena Rathugamage in Vavuniya.

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