NORWAY HELPS USD 10m FOR HELPLESS TAMIL IDPs!!!

Norway pledges US $ 10m for displaced in North

By Kelum Bandara

The Norwegian government has decided to pledge US $ 10 million for the assistance of the people displaced in the Northern Province. The funds will be disbursed through the ICRC, the UN agencies and other local and international NGOs to provide relief to the IDPs.

A Norwegian High Commission spokesman told Daily Mirror yesterday that his country had also delivered some of these funds to the ICRC to meet the present demands, and the rest would be made available very soon.

The spokesman said that his country would observe the development on the issue, and see the possibility of sending in more aid if the need arose.

In addition to Norway, India has already pledged Rs. 1 billion as humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka. The country has also donated 40,000 family kits for the use of the affected people with another shipload of 50,000 kits to be sent very soon.

Over 190,000 IDPs have now come into the cleared areas, and Vavuniya Government Agent P.S.M. Charles said that 168,000 of them had been accommodated at 24 transit camps and welfare villages in Vavuniya.

She said that plans are already underway to put up more temporary huts for the welfare of these people.

Meanwhile, the government also launched its resettlement programme in the Northern Province on Wednesday. Under the first phase, 120 families who were displaced in 2007 were resettled in the Musali area in the Mannar district.

A government official said, on condition of anonymity, that 13 Divisional Secretariat areas had been declared mine-free by the UNDP, and therefore, people could be resettled there.

He said that the Ceylon Electricity Board had pledged to provide electricity facilities to these areas to facilitate the resettlement process.
DAILYMIRROR.LK