Chennai: Sri Lanka has assured a team of 10 MPs from Tamil Nadu that 58,000 Sri Lankan Tamils currently staying in fenced-off camps will be taken back to their homes from Thursday, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said in Chennai on Wednesday.
"There are 253,000 Tamils living in the camps and they will be sent back to their original places in phases - that is the assurance the MPs team got from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa," the DMK chief told reporters in Chennai.
The resettlement will be done in phases and cannot be done in one go, the Sri lanka government said, he added.
Expressing satisfaction at the Sri Lankan government's response to the team that had MPs from the DMK, the Congress and the VCK, Karunanidhi said the first phase of resettlement of internally displaced people (IDP) will start on Thursday and will be completed in 15 days.
The MPs delegation returned to Chennai on Wednesday evening after its five-day tour of the island-nation to assess the living conditions of the Tamils in the camps after Sri Lankan forces crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Earlier in the evening, Karunanidhi received the delegation led by TR Baalu of the DMK at the airport. The team briefed him on its tour.
Karunanidhi said the MPs delegation in its meetings with the Sri Lankan president and other officials stressed the importance of sending the people living in the camps back to their original homes.
On the issue of a political solution for the more than two decades old ethnic problem, Rajapaksa did not indicate any time frame, according to the chief minister.
Karunanidhi said the state government will urge the Indian government to render more help to Sri Lanka to complete the demining of the areas so that the people remaining in the camps can be resettled at the earliest.
"The MPs team also urged the Sri Lankan government to hand over the children orphaned in the war to NGOs. The Sri Lankan government has assured that steps are being taken in this regard," Karunanidhi said.
"The Sri Lankan government requested the MPs to get from the Indian government further assistance in the form of food items, building materials, agricultural implements," he said.
On the issue of the Sri Lankan Navy attacking Indian fishermen, Karunanidhi said Sri Lanka has assured the MPs delegation that such attacks will not happen and has also requested the cooperation of the Indian government on this count.
Kanimozhi, a team member and Karunanidhi's daughter, said it was not a guided tour. "There were no restrictions on us about the places to be visited and not to be visited."
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