Sri Lankan refugee camps try UN patience

The Sri Lankan government sent home nearly 10,000 war refugees on Friday amid concerns from the international community about the nearly 300,000 displaced Tamil civilians who remain in government-run camps.

The civilians were displaced after a military offensive defeated the Tamil Tiger rebel group in May, ending the island's decades-old civil war.

Since then, the ethnic Tamils have been placed in crowded military-run camps, where sanitation is poor and movement is restricted.

International rights groups have said holding the civilians is an illegal form of collective punishment and has urged the government to open the camps. But the government has said it is screening the hundreds of thousands of refugees for potential rebel fighters.

The UN helps fund and manage the camps, but said it worries the process of screening is moving too slowly and is putting too much pressure on the limited facilities and resources.

On Friday, 9,920 people were taken home by bus to their villages in the east and north, said Senaka Ubesinghe, a government spokesman. Another 74 Tamil university students were sent home, he said.

Flooding a concern in camps

Neil Buhne, the resident co-ordinator of the United Nations in Sri Lanka, said more people should be allowed to leave.

"With the screening continuing I think we can't continue providing indefinitely the funding if the site remains closed as it does," said Buhne.

"The best solution is obviously that as many people leave as soon as possible and for the people that have no place else to go it becomes an open site," he said.

The government has said it aims to return 80 per cent of the displaced to their homes by the end of the year. Aid workers fear conditions will become worse when monsoon rains begin next month.

In August, nearly 2,000 shelters set up at the Manik Farm camp in the island's northeast were damaged or destroyed after heavy rains flooded the area.