By IANS,
Colombo : Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that pulling out aid agencies from areas held by the Tamil Tigers in the island’s north was “only a temporary measure to ensure their own safety” and assured that they would be allowed to return once the region is cleared of rebels.
“We told them to get out of Wanni in order to ensure their own safety. It is only a short term measure and very soon these aid agencies would be able to get back and serve the people there. But I cannot set a time frame for their return at the moment,” Rajapaksa told foreign correspondents at a dinner meeting Monday at his Temple Trees residence here.
Rajapaksa said the directive for the aid agencies to pull out immediately from the rebel-held areas was “not at all an indication by the government to intensify the ongoing military campaign against the rebels”.
The UN and other aid agencies began moving their staff and equipment out of the rebel-controlled areas last week to comply with government orders even as fighting between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) intensified.
However, hundreds of civilians protested outside the offices of aid agencies in Kilinochchi, 320 km north of here, and forced them to suspend their attempt to pull out.
Claiming that the government mechanism was in place to look after the needs of the civilians there, Rajapaksa said that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank “are ready to fund developmental projects in the north and the east”.
In a statement issued Monday night, the UN office here said it has “received assurances from the LTTE that UN and humanitarian agency staff remaining in Kilinochchi can leave”.
“We intend moving those staff in a single convoy at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Tuesday). We expect that all staff and this convoy will be given safe passage by the LTTE to the Omanthai crossing,” it said.
It said that its staff was prepared to conduct humanitarian operations to help civilians in Wanni from Vavuniya, 254 km north of here.
“We reiterate that we have been compelled to temporarily relocate from Kilinochchi because of our security assessment that the situation has become too dangerous to remain working from there at this time,” the UN statement said.