India has taking up IDPs issue with Sri Lanka: Sonia

CHENNAI: Expressing concern over some of the displaced Tamil civilians still being lodged in camps in Sri Lanka, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has said India has taken up the mattter with that country so that they are moved out of the camps at the earliest.

In her reply to a letter written by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on the issue, Gandhi said the Indian government was extending whatever humanitarian and resettlement assistance possible to alleviate hardships faced by the displaced Tamil civilians.

The issue of resettlement and rehabilitation as well as reconstruction process in the war ravaged areas had been taken up at an appropriate level in Sri Lanka so that the civilians would be able to move out of the camps at the earliest, she said in the letter.

Around 25,000 of the total 2.90 lakh Tamil civilians displaced due to the civil war are still lodged in various camps in Sri Lanka.

Karunanidhi, whose DMK is part of the UPA government, had written to Gandhi on October 8 in this regard.

Sonia Gandhi's letter to the DMK chief was released to the media by the state government today.