Jaffna-IDP

  The enterprising Arab traders had long contacts with the North of Sri Lanka where they settled down later. They were present in the north of the island long before the advent of Islam more than fourteen centuries ago.   According to some schools of thought, the early Arabs who came to the island settled down first in the north …

  Defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has said it is not appropriate to view the north of the country, over which a separatist war was fought, as a predominantly Tamil area. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who many credit with defeating Tamil rebels, also told the BBC there were few civilian casualties in the war's closing phase. Human rights groups say tens of thousands …

  There are over 100 million ethnic Tamils scattered throughout the world without a “motherland” they can call their own. This has instilled in the Tamil consciousness an unfounded sense of low self-esteem. Tamil academics decided the way to remedy this situation was to establish a “beach-head” for a national ethnic identity; their own country. Ven. Walpola Piyananda in his …

  [Editors' note: Submission to the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, 4th of November, 2010.] Northern Muslims in Post Conflict Sri Lanka The entire Muslim community of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province – numbering approximately  75,000 persons, were expelled by the LTTE in a systematic and organized manner during a two week period in October 1990. Northern Muslims were 5% of the Population …

Iran to help An Iranian delegation was scheduled to arrive in the island today to visit Muslim Internally Displaced Persons in Sri Lanka, who marked 20 years since their eviction from the Jaffna Peninsula recently, Sri Lankan Ambassador to Iran M.M Zuhair said yesterday “The delegates would be visiting IDP’s to assess their situation and find ways to help them,” …

  The end of the civil war in Sri Lanka last year has given hope to thousands of Muslims exiled from the north of the country by the Tamils. In October 1990, the Tamil Tigers accused the Muslim minority of collaborating with the mainly Sinhalese government and expelled them from the region. Some were given only hours to leave, but …