Sri Lanka vow to resettle thousands of homeless Tamils

Most of the 250,000 Tamils in Sri Lanka, forced from their homes by the recently ended war will be resettled within six months, promise senior politicians. The Sri Lankan government said it would do all it could to meet the deadline.The plight of the thousands of displaced people has caused widespread concern across the world.

Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and National Security Adviser MK Narayanan made the announcement after President Mahinda Rajapaksa said Sri Lanka intended to take “swift action.” "The government of Sri Lanka indicated that it was their intention to dismantle the relief camps at the earliest and outlined a 180-day plan to resettle the bulk of internal displaced peoples to their original places of habitation," said a statement released by the Indian High Commission. "The government of India is committed to provide all possible assistance in the implementation of such a plan in areas such as de-mining, provision of civil infrastructure and reconstruction of houses."

Both countries realised the "urgent necessity of arriving at a lasting political settlement in Sri Lanka,” the statement said. Colombo also intended to start a broader discussion with all parties including Tamils, "for further enhancement of political arrangements to bring about lasting peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka,” the statement added. Sri Lankan Minister for Resettlement Rishat Badiuddin told the BBC Sinhala service the government would try its best to meet the six-month deadline.

But he said landmines had to be cleared and documentation obtained that the areas were risk free. More than 250,000 civilians who fled the island's war zone in the north-east are staying in temporary shelters, which the government calls "welfare villages". International aid agencies have pleaded for relief workers to have better access to the tightly controlled camps.

The Indian representatives told reporters before leaving Colombo after their closed-door meeting with President Rajapaksa that he was willing to go beyond a 1987 devolution plan in order to consolidate peace in the ethnically divided nation, where at least 80,000 people have been killed in three decades of war.

Reconciliation Minister Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, a former rebel commander who was known as Col Karuna, earlier said elections would be held in areas affected by recent fighting once people had been resettled. Much of the north-eastern area is now depopulated and with the problems of minefields and other land development issues, according to a BBC correspondent in the capital, Columbo, and a huge rehabilitation process will be needed before elections can take place.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children