The remaining Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the welfare villages of the North will be free to move from their centres from today (December 01). The centres will be declared as 'open camps', Resettlement and Disaster Relief Services Minister Rishad Bathiyudeen said.

There will be no restrictions imposed on them. they will not be told when they should return once they leave the camp. However, inmates would be able to freely leave and re-enter the camps once they have registered their details with the relevant authorities and they would be given a token which needs to be returned upon coming back to the camp, he added.

The Minister further elaborated that the government's open camp policy will allow the inmates to resettle themselves once they leave the camp and are not required to return back to the camp.

According to government sources, around 128,000 people remain in the camps at the moment, while around 145,000 have been resettled already. About 9,000 people had been resettled last week from all the camps.