Japan provides over one mln USD to war displaced Sri Lankans

COLOMBO, Aug. 14 -- Japan has provided 117 million rupees (about 1.02 million U.S. dollars) to improve the sanitary condition in Sri Lanka's northern welfare camps where about 300,000 Tamil civilians are being housed, the Sri Lankan government said Friday.

The Department of Government said in a statement that the aid package will provide much needed equipment for transportation of garbage, water and waste water and will include 26 tractors, four tipper lorries, two loaders, a backhoe loader and two pick up trucks.

The funds will also be used to improve roadside drains in the camp sites, said the statement.

The Japanese government is the highest single donor nation that had helped Sri Lanka to face the problem of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), said the statement.

The IDPs were displaced by the final battles between the government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government has pledged to resettle them to their homes within six months starting from May.

The LTTE had been fighting for more than two decades to carve out an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east before they were defeated by the troops in May.