Sri Lankan Tamil party says returnees barred from resettling in their original homes

Sri Lanka's Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran says that internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Santhapuram area in the Kilinochchi District were not allowed to resettle in their original homes after they were asked to return home.


Premachandran has told the local media that displaced were sent back to their transit camps by the army instead.
The IDPs in Santhapuram had informed the TNA that they were ordered to return to their homes by the military and accordingly they had returned and set up temporary shelters.
On July 29, army personnel have allegedly forced them out and taken their belongings away in a tractor.
Premachandran was on a visit to the Wanni with other TNA parliamentarians that day. He said that the army had made house to house visits collecting belongings of the IDPs in a tractor and had taken it back to the camp.
However, Defence Spokesperson Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella has said that the authenticity of these allegations will have to be verified.