By Susitha Fernando Colombo 5th September : The President’s Office has set up a committee to help facilitate the return of Sri Lankan refugees who fled to India particularly during the 26-year-long ethnic war.
Secretary of the President Saman Ekanayake appointed the committee to ensure the return of minorities of Tamils from the devastated northern Sri Lanka.The committee was appointed upon the demand of the Organisation for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OFERR) to return the Sri Lankans who fled to India as refugees because of the conflict.
“It was revealed that approximately 58,000 Sri Lankans are living in Tamil Nadu, India as refugees, but just 3,800 of them are willing to go back to Sri Lanka at present,” the President’s Office stated.
According to the data of the Indian Home Ministry, as of 2021, 58.843 Sri Lankans resided in one of the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu.There were however around 34,000 Lankan refugees that were registered with the government authorities who resided outside the camps.
The Sri Lanka Deputy High Commissioner’s Office in Chennai is in charge of coordinating the process, and officials of Sri Lanka’s Department of Immigration and Emigration as well as the Justice Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry and officials of the Registrar General’s Department are in the committee.
Since the civil war began in the early 1980s Tamils who are the most populous ethnic group in the nation of islands, comprising about 12 percent of the population, have fled towards South India in search of security and protection.
In a state of denial over the current economic crisis in the nation’s island, a huge amount of Tamils in north Sri Lanka also left for Tamil Nadu recently.
With religious, cultural, and historical connections throughout the years, Tamil in Sri Lanka and India have maintained close ties with India.
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