Colombo - The Sri Lankan government will step up its mine- clearing efforts in former rebel-held areas in the northern part of the country to resettle 159,000 displaced persons before the end of January, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said Thursday. The foreign minister told Colombo-based diplomats that there are an estimated 1.5 million unexploded land mines in an area of 402 square kilometers in the northern part of the country.
Bogollagama said the government has recently imported the latest demining machinery from Slovakia and Croatia to speed up the process of mine-clearing.
The new machines are expected to clear 5,000 square metres of land per day, faster than the manual system used by non-governmental organisations, which can only clear 50 square metres per day, the minister said.
The government claims it has resettled 108,757 persons since October, but local NGOs say that some of them have only been moved to temporary camps in other locations.
The final stages of fighting between government troops and Tamil rebels since January this year left over 280,000 displaced. All were transferred to camps in the north and most of the 159,000 remain in camps in the northern Vavuniya district.
The government has been under local and international pressure to resettle the displaced persons before the heavy rains expected later this month.
Military operations against the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) concluded on May 18, after the entire leadership of the rebels was killed in fighting in the north, ending a 26-year war.
