Resettlement to end by October: official
August 20, 2010 04:13 pm
Resettlement of the conflict displaced in Sri Lanka’s battle with the Tiger rebels is to finish by end of September, a top official said Friday.
Chandra Fernando, a presidential advisor on north and east development, told
reporters here that all efforts would be made to complete the resettlement
before end of September.
“We hope to be able to complete the resettlement before end of September. There
are only 28,000 people left to be resettled in Mullaithivu and Kilinochchi (the
former rebel strongholds in the north),” Fernando said.
He said the resettlement in Mannar and Vavuniya districts in the north have
been 95 percent completed.
“Our progress has been good compared with most other countries where large
numbers of people had been displaced”, Fernando stressed.
Nearly 300,000 people were displaced during the final stage of the conflict in
May 2009 when government troops crushed the over three-decade-old rebel
campaign to set up a separate Tamil homeland, Xinhua reports.