Tamil IDPs continue to suffer from lack of freedom of movement! Separation from family members & lack of means of livelihood! Disappearances!!!

Sri Lanka's State run media spins news better than Murali

2009-11-19 | 7.30 PM | http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33006&Cr=sri+lanka&Cr1

This is what has been said by the UN on Sir John Holmes trip to Sri Lanka (links above) . However the Sri Lankan media spuby the Defence Ministry and the Foreign Ministry reported statements that the UN reports do not mention.

Sir John has been very critical about the lack of freedom of movement and the general conditions overall. He has also raised his disappointment with officials that there still remains at least another 163,000 IDPs in camps fenced by barbed wire and surrounded by armed soldiers.

The three-day visit is the fourth to the country

this year for Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who has raised the issue of internally displaced persons (IDPs) with officials on several occasions.
There were more than 270,000 displaced people staying in closed camps after the conflict between the Government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ended in May. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that about 163,000 are still there.

The residents in the camps in Jaffna that Mr. Holmes visited today continue to suffer from a lack of freedom of movement and are hoping for an early return to their homes or release from the camp, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Mr. Holmes, who is also UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, also spoke to some of the 60,000 recent returnees to Jaffna, who were happy to be out of the camps but continue to face problems, including separation from family members, and lack of means of livelihood.

The IDPs with whom Mr. Holmes spoke “confirmed their desire to return home, but wanted more information about the return process, including the time of their own return and details of the support they would have on arrival,” according to a news release issued by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Lanka News Web .com