Nearly 3,000 Lankan refugees want to return home, UNHCR says

The United Nations refugee agency, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says some 2,800 Sri Lankan refugees in India and beyond have expressed an interest in returning home in the near future.

A recent UNHCR report said the security situation has greatly improved in Sri Lanka and refugees who fled the war are returning now.

The agency says it is helping a growing number of Sri Lankan refugees to return to their villages in the war-torn North and East, two years after the three-decade long conflict ended in May 2009. According to the agency, so far this year, over 1000 refugees have returned.

While most of the returnees are from the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu, smaller numbers from countries such as Malaysia, Georgia and the Caribbean island of St. Lucia also have returned recently.

According to the UNHCR, most of the refugees have returned to Trincomalee, Mannar, Vavuniya and Jaffna and a few have gone to areas in Kilinochchi, Batticaloa, Ampara and Colombo.  Michael Zwack, UNHCR’s Representative in Sri Lanka says that the newly established ferry service between Colombo and Tuticorin in India’s Tamil Nadu state is a boost for the returnees.  “The number of refugees arriving back home in Sri Lanka is rising slowly and could increase further over the next half year with the recent launch of the Tuticorin-Colombo ferry service,” Zwack has said.

The Sri Lankan refugees who are interested in returning home can approach the nearest UNHCR office in their country of asylum. Once the request is processed, the UNHCR will provide an air ticket to Sri Lanka and help them to obtain relevant travel documents. Once the refugees returned to Sri Lanka, the UNHCR staff will meet them at the airport and provide them with a modest transport grant to help them make their way home.  The returnees under UNHCR’s voluntary repatriation programme are also given a standard reintegration grant, as a first step towards helping them restart their lives, the UNHCR says.

Once the returnees reach their final destination in the country, they can approach one of UNHCR’s five offices in the North and East to obtain a kit of basic household supplies, including plastic mats, mosquito nets, bed sheets, buckets and kitchen sets.

UNHCR also carries out regular monitoring in the villages where the returnees settle and provides them with food ration lists. The returnees will also receive mine risk education.

The agency also refers people with special needs, such as the disabled and the elderly, to specialised institutions to obtain assistance and the people in need of legal counselling towards the relevant government authority or other organisations that can provide targeted assistance.