Refugees in India ready to return

3 December 2010 12:57 pm Views - 3045

More Sri Lankan refugees in India are ready to return to Sri Lanka, says the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

"UNHCR is observing a trend of increasing numbers of Sri Lankan refugees returning home from India compared with last year," Jennifer Pagonis, deputy representative for the agency, told IRIN in Colombo.
 
Thousands fled to India because of the decades-long conflict between government forces and the now defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who had been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland. Of the more than 100,000 refugees in India, about 72,000 are living in 112 refugee camps in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India, with about 34,000 living outside the camps.

In the first eight months of this year, some 1,150 refugees voluntarily returned home with UNHCR assistance compared with 843 for all of 2009, she said. "We expect this upward trend to continue," Pagonis said. (Source: irinnews.org)