� S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S � PAGE 15Tuesday, February 9, 2010
BY KRISHAN FRANCIS
The Associated Press
KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka -- The vast rice
fields of Kilinochchi are overgrown with shrubs.
The herds of cattle and goats have disappeared.
The tractors and motorcycles are gone. Buildings
and homes have been bombed into heaps of con-
crete rubble.
War refugees have found little left of their old
lives as they trickle back to their villages in the for-
mer Tamil Tiger stronghold eight months after Sri
Lankan forces crushed the rebel group.
"We are happy to be back but confused about
what to do next," Subramanium Muthurasu, 66,
said."Wehavetostartfarming,butwe
don't have the resources. We
stand empty-handed."
Muthurasu, who
once grew rice and
tendedcattleinthe
villageofKaraich-
chi, is desperate to
find a way to make
money now that
he has the extra
responsibility
of taking care
of his daughter,
widowed by the
war, and her five
children.
Thegovernment
says the return-
ees are get-
ting food rations and money to help them out, but
conceded it was not enough.
"You should understand that this is a poor coun-
try, you will not be able to give everything at one
go," said Maj. Gen. Kamal Gunaratne, the military
official in charge of the hundreds of thousands of
Tamil civilians displaced by the fighting.
For more than a quarter-century, this Indian
Ocean island nation was consumed by the conflict
between the Sinhalese-dominated government and
the ethnic Tamil separatists who were fighting for
an independent state in the jungles of the north.
According to U.N. documents, more than 7,000
civilians were killed in the final months of the
fighting.
About 300,000 Tamils were forced into govern-
ment detention camps, awaiting government per-
mission to return to their homes.
Kilinochchi today looks like a garrison town with
dozens of military camps, large and small, every
few hundred yards and soldiers patrolling the
streets. Rebel monuments have been replaced by
army war memorials.
No building is without damage and the streets
are nearly empty, because only 8,000 of the dis-
trict's estimated 120,000 pre-war residents have
returned.
Gunaratne said about 70 percent of people in
camps have gone home or live with relatives and
friends. Some others live in transit camps, cleaning
up their land before moving back.
The returnees receive a resettlement package
of $250 from the United Nations refugee agency,
six months of food rations, 12 tin roof sheets and
a tent.
In the village of Karaichchi, soldiers have also
built mud and thatch huts as temporary shelters to
protectreturningfamiliesfromtherainandhelped
clean up land and wells.
Returnees say the resettlement package is not
enough for them to make the needed investments
in cleaning up and replanting their farms or re-
starting businesses.
"Is this enough to start our lives?'" asked Rami-
ah Rajamani as he used the tin sheets to cover his
hut in Puliyankulam village south of Kilinochchi.
Rajamani said he saved $150 of the $250 grant to
resume farming. He will need twice that amount to
cultivate his two-acre farm, he said.
UNHCR spokeswoman Sulakshani Perera said
the U.N. was distributing food rations and hygiene
kits in resettled villages.
"The need to develop livelihoods remains a key
issue that must be tackled in order to ensure that
the returns are durable," she said.
WAR REFUGEES STRUGGLE TO REBUILD IN SRI LANKA
Returnees receive a resettlement package of $250 from the United Nations
refugee agency, six months of food rations, 12 tin roof sheets and a tent.
Sri Lankan children play outside their shelter at
a resettled village in Killinochchi, Sri Lanka.
PHOTOS BY ERANGA JAYAWARDENA/AP
A Sri Lankan soldier helps build a mud hut for a newly resettled ethnic Sri Lankan Tamil family at a village in Killinochchi, Sri Lanka.

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