Strict rules for Tamils on break from camps

Thousands of Tamil civilians yesterday streamed out of the controversial refugee camps where they have been detained for months after the Sri Lanka Government told them they were free to leave temporarily.

But the bar on international monitoring of the camps and the refugees' movements remained in force.

A full six months after the end of the country's long-running civil war, officials said the civilians were able to leave the overcrowded camps for up to 10 days, although they would have to register with the authorities wherever they went.

Major-General Kamal Gunaratne, the officer in charge of the biggest of the camps, Menik Farm, said that anyone who failed to return would be "tracked down".

Human rights groups said it was a positive step.

"It's good that they are out of the camps but there is another entire set of problems that will come up if these people are not properly monitored and protected," said Brad Adams, a senior spokesman for Human Rights Watch.

"And then there are also the reports that up to 11,000 Tamils are still being held as security suspects.

"That could be higher than the number of [rebel fighters] who were fighting in the last stages of the war."

Up to 300,000 Tamil refugees were forced into camps in the aftermath of the fighting which saw the remnants of the once powerful Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) crushed and its leadership killed.

Conditions inside the camps, which were surrounded by armed guards and barbed wire, were widely condemned by aid groups.

The civilians complained of lack of water and insufficient access to information about their fate.

Journalists were only permitted access on occasional, escorted trips.

Under international pressure, the Government pledged that most of the civilians would be returned to their homes by the end of the year, once mine clearance operations had been completed and all those held in the camps had been thoroughly vetted by security.

An estimated 127,000 civilians are still in the camps and officials now say all the facilities will be closed by the end of January.

Six thousand were reported to have left by yesterday lunchtime.

Those taking the opportunity to leave the camps yesterday said they had received no help in getting where they wanted to go.

The authorities have been widely criticised for failing to allow aid agencies proper access to the camps.

Concern has also been raised about providing the civilians with adequate help to allow them to resettle.

Senior UN relief official John Holmes, who recently visited Sri Lanka, said it would be years before normality returned to the north of Sri Lanka, an area that was held by the LTTE until the Army launched the operation that drove them out.

- INDEPENDENT