B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government is gearing to re-settle in the next two weeks 44,000 of the nearly 3 lakh war displaced, said senior officials here on Wednesday.

These displaced persons, housed in relief camps on the outskirts of Vavuniya town, are to be sent back to their places of residence in Jaffna district before the onset of monsoon.

Internews, an NGO, quoted Vavuniya Government Agent (District Collector) P.S.M. Charles as saying the arrangements were being made through the relevant GAs to resettle those who belong to places outside the districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu.

It said many of them lost their houses during the conflict and CARITAS organisation has come forward to construct semi- permanent houses in Jaffna district.

Separately, U.K.-based Channel 4 aired video footage, which it could not authenticate, apparently showing a purported soldier shooting two people with their hands tied to their back in the area captured from LTTE.

The channel said it obtained the video from “Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka”, a newly-formed forum of Sri Lanka-based journalists in self-exile and was filmed in January. Kilinochchi, administrative and political HQ of LTTE, fell into the hands of military on January 2 and Mullaithivu, the military HQ on January 25.

Denouncing the video as “diabolical” and aimed at tarnishing the image of the nation, the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry strongly and unequivocally denied the allegations.