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Leading News from Sri Lanka ::
Oct 22, Colombo: The members of the European Parliament adopted an urgent resolution Thursday demanding access for humanitarian organizations to the 250,000 civilians displaced by the civil war and held in camps in Sri Lanka.
Issuing a statement the MEPs deplored the continued detention of over 250,000 Tamil civilians in welfare camps and asked the Sri Lankan government to organize their return and give humanitarian organizations free access to the camps in order to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance.
The EU parliament members also urged the Tamil leaders to commit themselves to a political settlement and renounce terrorism and violence once and for all. In the same vein, the resolution asked the government to respect human rights in the conduct of trials of LTTE members.
"The Sri Lankan government must cease its repression of the media in the name of its anti-terrorist legislation, which must be overhauled, and press freedom must be recognized," the MEPs stressed.
The EU parliament members said the government must put more effort into clearing minefields in the war-torn region heavily mined by the rebels.
The MEPs also called on the government to take measures to comply with the Ottawa Treaty (Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction).
The Sri Lankan government has accelerated the release of the displaced civilians from the camps. So far, more than 20,000 civilians have been resettled in their original homes in cleared areas.
Over 52 Non-governmental organizations including world bodies such as the UN, UNDP, UNICEF, WFP, ICRC, Save the Children and various Christian charities have access to the displaced, the government says.
The government recently imported 10 automatic demining machines from Slovakia and Croatia to accelerate the demining process.
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