SRI LANKA: Menik Farm IDP camp to close by 30 September
COLOMBO, 21 September 2012 (IRIN) - Menik Farm in northern Sri Lanka, once one of the world’s largest camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), is to close by the end of September, say government officials.
“By 30 September the camp will be empty,” Minister of Resettlement Gunaratne Weerakoon told IRIN in Colombo, noting that the final group of 1,185 IDPs would be resettled in their places of origin next week.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 827 IDPs are set to return on either 23 or 24 September, mostly to the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu in Mullaitivu District, northern Sri Lanka. The destination of the final balance of 358 has yet to be determined.
The camp - a sprawling 700-hectare site outside the northern town of Vavuniya - was hastily erected in the final stages of the decades-long war between government forces and now defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland since 1983.
At its height at the end of the war, nearly 300,000 IDPs lived in the camp.
Landmines [ read more ]
