Thousands of Tamils being released per day from the camps Special

At the present time, more than 300,000 Tamils are being held in internal displacement camps and have been since the 30-year civil war concluded in spring of this year. Tamils worldwide have been demonstrating to show their frustration and anger of what those in Sri Lankan camps are going through. Tamils accuse the Sri Lankan government of not giving the proper medical treatment to the people in these camps, torture and even execution. Now the Sri Lankan has decided to act and is starting to release between 2,000 and 3,000 Tamils per day, according to the BBC. Reports are stating that many of the Tamils released are going to host families, relatives or farmland that may not be their original household. Al Jazeera noted last month that at least 40,000 Tamils have been cleared to go home. The decision to release them came after strong international pressure and made it quite lucid that it was extremely important to release the men, women and children. Tamils are very pleased to be leaving the camps; however, they are very concerned about their future because they do not have a home, money or a job and have to start “from zero.” However, Sri Lankan authorities have provided the released Tamils with cash, tools and tin sheets to build or rebuild their homes. A minister for the Sri Lankan government has said that at least 80,000 have been released and that at 190,000 remain in the camps. There have been harsh accusations, even by parliamentary opposition, that it is not possible to access families within the camps because it is strongly restricted by paramilitaries surrounding the IDCs. Nevertheless, the Sri Lankan government deems it necessary to investigate any connections that people inside the camps have with the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels. Currently, the goal by President Mahinda Rajapaska is to have all Tamil prisoners resettled by the end of January 2010. Tamilnet reported in October that of the 2,000 Tamils released, 150 are pregnant women and 620 family members and they report back to the district of Jaffna but the problem is that a large majority of the IDPs are being detained, again, by the Sri Lankan Navy and transferred to another displacement camp. 1,500 IDPs are scheduled to be resettled in the next few days. In an e-mail correspondence with Digital Journal, Senthan Nada, a Toronto spokesperson for the Coalition to Stop the War in Sri Lanka, says that in the past the Sri Lankan government would say they are releasing prisoners but then they were relocated into another displacement camp. Nevertheless, Nada believes that if Sri Lanka continues this genuine initiative then "it is a somewhat positive development." But, Nada concluded, "a lot more work needs to be done."