Sri Lanka allows Red Cross committee access to LTTE rehabilitation camps

After stonewalling for nearly three years, Sri Lanka has allowed a team of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the rehabilitation camps housing ex-LTTE combatants.

Brigadier Darshana Hettiarachchi, the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation said that ICRC delegation had visited the Marandhamadu rehabilitation camp in the north on February 22.

The ICRC had not been provided access to camps since early 2010, Hettiarachchi said.

"They (ICRC) spent over 3 hours in the camp inspecting the facilities", Hettiarachchi said.

Lanka permission to the ICRC team came just days ahead of crucial UNHRC vote on Lanka's human rights.

Sri Lanka claims to have successfully rehabilitated over 11,000 ex-members of the LTTE who gave themselves up to the security forces during the final phase of the military conflict in May 2009.

Only a very few of them are undergoing rehabilitation currently.

For rehabilitation, the ex-cadres were provided with language training and life skills training.

Some of them were selected to be recipients of self employment loans upon being reintegrated in to the society.