Visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Eric P. Schwartz expressed concern over hundreds of thousands of people displaced by war and continued to be confined in military-run camps for more than two months now. He pledged funds to help their resettlement.
Eric P. Schwartz spoke to reporters Monday in Colombo after visiting the Manik Farm, the largest camp for IDPs in Vavuniya. He said the U.S was "deeply concerned about a range of issues where further progress is essential.
He also announced $8 million to help hasten the resettlement and recovery process of 280,000 displaced Tamil people living in internment camps.
"In particular the vast majority of displaced persons remain confined to camps," "Moreover there remain burdensome limitations on access to those camps for those international humanitarian organizations and others who are in a position to ameliorate the conditions faced by these victims of conflict," Associated Press reported quoting Eric P. Schwartz.
AP further reported Schwartz saying, that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and other top officials have assured him of "significant and substantial returns" of displaced people to their homes over the next month.
Foreign diplomats and aid workers fear that the camps are actually internment camps where the displaced people are being held indefinitely. Schwartz said he raised the issue with government officials who insisted that camps were only temporary.
He said the government also invited him back to observe the process of return and recovery. He said he hoped to do so. He added that the extent of relations between Sri Lanka and the US hinges on the outcome of the reconciliation process in Sri Lanka.
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