Colombo (PTI): With India pressing for an early political solution to the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka, an all party committee has finalised its recommendation on the devolution package for northern areas that will offer enhanced rights and privileges to the minority Tamil community.

Chennai (PTI): Ruling DMK on Friday sharply criticised the LTTE for not responding to the 48-hour ceasefire declared by the Sri Lankan government in the Vanni region to evacuate large number of civilian Tamils caught in the fighting between the island army and the Tigers.

The Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights appreciates the concern expressed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the plight of civilians trapped in the conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka. It is also grateful that she has noted in her recent statement ‘reports of forced recruitment, including of children, as well as the use of civilians as human shields by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)’.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has decided to grant funds amounting to Rs. 300 million towards urgent food deliveries for the benefit of these people and this would be carried out by the UN World Food Programme (WFP). 

"High prices of food, continuing displacements and a critically precarious nutritional-deficiency situation make it urgent that we render assistance to the people in the North of Sri Lanka in their difficult situation," Mrs. Heidemaries Wieczorek-Zeul, the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

Courtesy: news.lk