Sri Lanka refugee camp inmates on hunger stir

Chennai:

More than 10 inmates of Chengalpattu Sri Lankan refugee camp in Kancheepuram district are on an indefinite hunger strike for the sixth day seeking transfer to open camps, according to official sources.

Q Branch and Revenue department sources confirmed to Express on Saturday that the Sri Lankan refugees are on hunger stir.

Revenue department sources said they have forwarded their demands to the district collectorate who will later forward it to the government.

Interestingly, there are many inmates in the camp who want to go back to Sri Lanka after the end of ethnic conflict.

Fifty-five year old Sadasivam, who has been picked from Velankanni, is one of the six inmates from Chengalpattu camp who has sent petitions to go back to Sri Lanka.

After languishing in Trichy jail for six months and now kept in detention in Chengalpattu refugee camp for one year and a month, a bitter Sadasivam says he longs to go back to Sri Lanka after spending 14 years in India. 

“I had a hotel in Colombo which was sealed by the Lankan government during the ethnic conflict on suspicion for harbouring LTTE militants. Somehow I got bail and my wife left for Trincomalee and I came to India,” he said.

“Now I wish to go back,” the father of two children said.

“The war has ended in Sri Lanka but our struggle is endless. In Sri Lanka, after war may be there is some hope for Ealam Tamils but in India, there is no hope for the refugees and the Chengalpattu camp is an example,” says another inmate who doesn't want to be quoted.

“In most of the cases, police didn’t file any chargesheet. They even don’t attempt to take the cases to logical conclusion,” he said.

“Since we are going to be confined to camp. There is no pressure on the police to take the case to conclusion. For minor crimes, many of us are spending more than five years in the camp,” Sadasivam alleged.

“Even our families and children are struggling in open camp but there is no sympathy from the officials,” the inmates say. “If we are kept in the camp for too long we will go insane,” the inmates said.

More than 31 people are detained in the camp which was set up in 1993. As on September 2008, there are 72,889 refugees, belonging to 19,296 families, in 117 camps spread throughout the State.