COLOMBO: The resettlement of 41,685 Tamil war refugees, currently living in camps in north Sri Lanka, began on Thursday. The Presidential Secretariat said in a statement that 8643 persons of 2583 families would be resettled in Vavuniya District, while 6631 persons from 2644 families would be resettled in Mannar District. About 16394 persons of 4415 families will be resettled in Mullaitivu District and another group of 10017 persons of 2453 families will be resettled in Kilinochchi District.
Informed souces told Express that the refugees were being initially taken to Omanthai, Adampan and Tunukkai. Actual resettlement in their native villages will take time.
In a letter written to every refugee being resettled, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said that they were on the threshold of a new beginning amidst family and friends in their villages or very near them; that the days when they were used as cannon fodder and as human shields were over. Their children, who lacked the means to develop themselves under the tutelage of the LTTE, would now blossom. The President said that it was his dream to see Sri Lankan citizens living together as one family in the motherland.
Almost 40,000 children are attending classes in the refugee camps. Government had facilitated 1,187 students to sit the Advanced Level school examinations in August this year of which 166 were former LTTE cadre. About 100 former LTTE cadre are to be admitted to schools in Colombo to accelerate integration.
Notable progress has also been made in the health sector with the reduction of annual mortality rates to only 4.4 per 1000 in the welfare centers in Vavuniya, which is comparable with any other part of Sri Lanka.
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