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'Very little has changed' for Tamils in Jaffna IDP camp says UK Deputy HC

2nd lead

Photograph @UKinSriLanka


The British Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Laura Davies, said "very little has changed" for Tamils living in the Sabhapathipillai refugee camp over the past year.

Visiting Jaffna on Wednesday, the Davies met with the Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C. V. Wigneswaran, the NPC member Gajatheepan, government officials, civil society activists as well as displaced persons.

"Very little has changed for the community in the Sabhapathipillai camp in the year since PM Cameron's visit," she tweeted.

Residents told Davies of the difficulties they had faced over the past 24 years, and continue to face, appealing to her to help resolve their displacement, the Uthayan reported.

“My first visit to Jaffna was an opportunity to see how infrastructure developments - including the Yaal Devi train - have the potential to bring real economic benefits to the peninsula. But I also heard and saw how land issues continue to prevent some communities from rebuilding their lives, including at the Sabapathipillai Welfare Camp, which Prime Minister David Cameron visited last November," Davies said, in a press statement released after her visit.

Photograph British High Commission in Sri Lanka


The British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Jaffna in November last year, where he visited IDP camps and spoke to residents, many of whom have been displaced for over 20 years.

Last month, Davies wrote of her experience of being followed during a visit to the East.

“[It] gradually became impossible to ignore the fact that I was being watched,” she wrote on the Foreign Office blog page. See here for more.

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