At least two persons from a government-run relief camp for war displaced in Vavunia were injured on Saturday evening when security forces opened fire on a group that was trying to escape.
According to the Media Centre of National Security, the troops tried to prevent a group of IDPs trying to escape from Zone I to Zone II of the Manik farm camps.
“The IDPs in the camps reportedly attacked the sentries with clubs and stones. According to reports, one of the persons also threw a hand grenade.”
Military spokesperson Udaya Nannyakkara said two persons sustained injuries as the “troops fired back in self defence.” The police later arrested 19 persons on charges of instigating the crowd. The Army has initiated a probe on the presence of the grenade amongst the IDPs.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama met with his French and British counterparts in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and briefed them on the resettlement process. “Dismissing the misperception of returnees being relocated to other closed facilities, he outlined that they were interim sites in Jaffna for housing them until they readied their places of ownership for resettlement which generally would take about three weeks.”
“The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister called on France and the U.K. to assist in providing permanent shelter which will facilitate the requirements of the returnees who had left Jaffna for the Vanni over a decade ago,” a statement from the Foreign Office said here.
