Sri Lanka: Almost five years of peace but tens of thousands of war-displaced still without solution

Returnee woman with two grandchildren

As of February 2014, four-and-a-half years after the end of Sri Lanka’s internal armed conflict, there were thought to be as many as 90,000 people still living in internal displacement as a result of it, most of them with host communities. Of more than 480,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) registered as having returned to their places of origin in Northern and Eastern provinces, the situation of tens of thousands also remains a cause for concern.

Independent and comprehensive figures on internal displacement in Sri Lanka are increasingly hard to come by. Official numbers have fallen since the end of conflict as the government has deregistered IDPs, but no comprehensive assessment has been carried out to determine whether or not they had achieved a durable solution.(...)
PHOTO; Returnee woman with two grandchildren in front of their destroyed house in Kilinochchi district (Photo: IRIN/November 2012)
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