Two-member central team visits refugee camp in Mandapam

A two-member central team today visited a Sri Lankan refugee camp here and interacted with some of them to know whether they want to go back to their country.
The team visited the Mandapam refugee camp in Tamil Nadu, which houses 850 people.
A notification said that the objective of the team's visit was "to know about the facilities being given to the refugees, and their wishes and requirements to go back to their country".
The team comprised Prasanthajith Dev, Director for Refugee Rehabilitation, Home Ministry, and Satheesh Kumar, Secretary for Rehabilitation.
State Refugee Rehabilitation Director Thangarajan and another top official were present during the interaction.

The state government officials told reporters that some of the refugees were allowed to submit petitions to the team.

However, the refugees said that the team did not meet all of them or receive the petitions they had prepared to highlight their grievances.
They said that 600 people were willing to go back to Sri Lanka, even by ferry.
Kaliammal, a woman refugee, alleged that camp officials allowed only two people to interact with the team and that they had been asked to produce several documents, which they could not do "for practical reasons".
"We were hoping that the central team would redress our grievances. But we were not able to meet them due to the restrictions by the state officials," she said.

Chandramohan of Jaffna said that the Tamil Nadu government was taking care of them, but they wanted to return as the civic strife there (between the LTTE and the army) was over.
He claimed that though the refugees had given their consent to go back in 2015, no action was taken by the state or the central government.
Chandramohan said that they had also been assured of a ferry service to allow them to go back to Sri Lanka. But this too did not seen the light of day, he said.