200,000 Tamil Civilians Imprisoned In Sri Lankan Manik Farm Camp

Tamil civilians stand behind a barbed-wire fence as they watch U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tour their refugee camp called Manik Farm on the outskirts of the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya May 23, 2009. Ban toured Sri Lanka's largest war refugee camp named Manik Farm, home to 220,000 refugees, in the north of the country on Saturday during a trip to press for wider humanitarian access and political reconciliation, and is the highest-level international visit Sri Lanka since the government declared victory on Monday over the Tamil Tiger rebels in a 25-year war. REUTERS/Louis Charbonneau

From Times Online:

“We are in an open jail,” Kumar whispers, his skinny shoulders shaking as he looks around to check who is watching “Help us, we want to be free.”

He is one of about 200,000 Tamil civilians being held against their will behind the razor-wire coils that surround Manik Farm, the largest displacement camp in Sri Lanka — one of the largest in the world.

Camp is not the word its inmates use for it. A prison and a concentration camp were two of the descriptions The Times heard on a rare visit to the camp on the sidelines of the visit by Ban Ki Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General.

Squalor is less the defining feature of Manik Farm than militarism. The presence of armed soldiers around the camp and its perimeter is overwhelming. New armoured patrol vehicles sit at the entrance to the side of a sandbagged bunker.

Read more ....

Update: Sri Lanka says no aid access until rebel screening -- yahoo News/AFP

My Comment: These civilians are going to be in these camps for a very long time. The intent from the Sri Lankan Government is clear .... these are the last surviving supporters of the LTTE/Tigers, and they are to be treated as hostile combatants. What is also troubling is that the Sri Lankan Government is now intent on separating and isolating Tamils who they suspect of being combatants for the Tiger Army. One can only imagine what is happening to these men and women who are now being isloated.

As I had mentioned in a post last night .... with no outside observers being permitted, one will have to assume that war crimes have (and are) being committed on behalf of the Sri Lankan Government.