Wycombe MP Paul Goodman has presented a petition to the House Commons on behalf of 227 constituents urging the Government to press for help for Tamil civilians held in the North of Sri Lanka.  

 

The petition outlined the plight of the 280,000 Tamils illegally detained in military camps in the North of the island following the end of the civil war. It said that the problems caused by the lack of medical and humanitarian aid would be exacerbated by onset of the Monsoon rains. It added that the Sri Lankan government intended to make the camps permanent while the Tamils’ traditional lands were occupied by the armed forces.

 

The petition then went on to urge the Government to press for a list of demands including for the UN, International Red Cross and voluntary agencies to be given access to the camps and for a UN investigation into war crimes committed during the war.

 

Between 1983 and 2009 there was an intermittent civil war in Sri Lanka between the Government (dominated by the island’s majority Sinhalese population) and the Tamil Tigers who wanted a separate Tamil homeland in the north-east. The conflict ended in May 2009 when the Sri Lankan Government forces took control of the last area previously held by the Tamil Tiger rebels.