Publication-INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE (IDPs) AND THEIR VULNERABILITY: A CASE STUDY OF MUSLIM IDPs IN SRI LANKA (original) (raw)

2010, Journal of The World Monotheistic Religions Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions (CISMOR) at Doshisha University, Japan (P, 96 – 109).

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine how a minority group is impacted by an open-conflict, and finds out the vulnerability of such group of people, by taking a case study of internally displaced Muslims in Sri Lanka’s conflict from 1983 to 2009. This article ultimately discusses the impact of ethnic-cleansing on Muslim IDPs. The prolonged armed conflict which started in 1983 between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has claimed 90,000 lives and left 950,000 IDPs from three ethnic groups: Tamils (82%), Muslims (14%) and Sinhalese (4%) in Sri Lanka. Most of these IDPs are poor and live in IDP camps within the country. According to the Ministry of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Service, about 560,000 IDPs live in 540 IDP camps in 14 administrative districts in Sri Lanka. In 1990, when the armed conflict became severe between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the later used a strategy called ethnic-cleansing and forcibly expelled about 75,000 Muslims from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The displaced Muslims moved to North-western Province (Puttalam district) and have been living there in 145 IDP camps in four administrative divisions: Kalpitiya, Puttalam, Mundal, and Vannathavillu. The life in IDP camps have affected men, women, children and elderly people physically, psychologically, socially, and economically. It is reported that it was the first time that a certain ethnic group (Muslims) was forcibly expelled by the LTTE and live in IDP camps in the past 19 years in the Puttalam district of Sri Lanka. * Keywords: Internally Displaced People (IDPs), Ethnic-cleansing, Vulnerability, and Muslim IDPs