Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe yesterday expressed confidence that the bulk of the IDPs remaining in welfare camps could be resettled by January 31.

He said 70% of them have already left the camps and once the demining process is completed, all of them will be resettled in the villages of their choice.

Addressing a news conference at the Presidential Secretariat, the Minister said demining will be first completed in the areas where the IDPs are being resettled. The main roads such as A-9, A-32 and the areas surrounding the northern railway line were given priority, he said.

Samarasinghe said certain media reports had given wrong interpretations that the IDPs have been badly treated and compared them to prison camps or concentration camps.

Some others had misreported claiming that the IDPs are given the freedom to move out of the camps and they are hunted down by the forces if they don’t return to the camps within 15 days he said.

The Minister warned them not to speculate, but to disseminate the correct news.

"These are merely mudslinging campaigns to discredit the country."

The Minister said certain elements even went to the extent of saying that they will file petitions in the Supreme Court claiming that the IDPs were not looked after well.

There were 105,672 IDPs in the camps in Vavuniya as at yesterday and 750 were resettled, he said.

A total of 22, 443 out of nearly 120,000 have been resettled during the last three days, with 9,143 on 1 December, 6,900 on 2 December and 6,399 on 3 December.

Of these numbers, some have returned to camps after visiting the villages and attending to the work connected with construction, clearing, etc.

Responding to a question about the IDPs in the camps in the Puttalam District, Disaster Management Ministry Secretary Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe admitted that there were certain problems where their lands are concerned in the North since they were ordered to leave the areas within 24 hours by Prabhakaran and hence resettlement was not easy as one would think and no fixed time lines could be given where the Puttalam IDP are concerned.

Some of the younger IDPs don’t want to go back to the North, he said.