Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has directed authorities in Resettlement Ministry and Divisional Secretariat to make arrangements to speed the resettlement process of displaced Muslim families of Jaffna.
The Premier has taken this measure in response to an appeal by Sri Lanka’s Minister for Resettlement of Protracted Displaced Persons, Rishad Bathiudeen.
This is the first time in three decades that the Jaffna’s displaced Muslims, since their expulsion in 1990 by the LTTE, are hearing good news on their future, Minister Bathiudeen said.
Among the 20000 Northern Muslim families LTTE expelled overnight from their traditional homes in North on 1990 October 30 was the eight-member family of Minister Bathiudeen.
“Muslim IDPs who were resettled in Jaffna after the war, complain about the space of land available to them. They say the land is not enough for their growing population. Therefore some of them have even returned from the resettled locations back to their camps,” Minister Bathiudeen complained calling for Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s attention to the issue.
“Some housing of condominium (flats) style would help them greatly,” the Minister said addressing the Prime Minister during a meeting held in the Jaffna Divisional Secretariat Office on 14 February, joined by many regional and Parliamentary MPs from Jaffna.
According to Minister Bathiudeen’s Coordinator of Jaffna Displaced Muslims VAS Sufyan, around 2,800 such displaced Muslim families from Jaffna later registered with the authorities as “displaced”.
“Some of the 1990 displaced families are now living in Puttalam, Colombo, Gampaha and Panadura areas under very difficult circumstances while 700 other families of these returned to live in Jaffna – though not in their own, original lands, but just here and there in Jaffna vicinity,” Sufyan said.
He said that the Resettlement Ministry has started work to give half of them – around 365 families- better housing which is a “great relief” but another 335 families are struggling.
“Minister Bathiudeen’s request to Prime Minister on February 14 will bring relief to help this group,” said Sufyan.
Courtesy: Colombo Page
