Almost 265,000 displaced Tamil civilians who had fled Sri Lanka's war zone in 2009 have been resettled in their villages, leaving only five refugee centres operational in northern areas, an official said on Saturday.
As many as 42 of the 47 'welfare' centres established in northern Sri Lanka have now been closed, the Competent Authority on resettlement in the North, Major General Kamal Gunaratne said.
The centres were established to accommodate over 280,000 civilians who fled the region during the conflict in early 2009, and continued to house the refugees whose homes and villages had been destroyed.
Gunaratne said 265,000 of the displaced civilians have been resettled in their villages, an official statement said. It said the government had provided all the resettled families a resettlement payment of Rs 25,000 and dry rations for a period of six months.
The resettlement process is expected to be completed by the end of 2010, it said. According to Gunaratne there are still around 27,000 civilians to be resettled, but only 10,000 of them are living in the “welfare” centres.