Mandapam Camp was built in the early 1900s by the

British Government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

to house migrant plantation workers coming to India from Sri Lanka. The Camp is located in South India, 700 km South of Chennai (formerly known as

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

), the capital of the state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. In the late 1970s the

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; , ; also known as the Tamil Tigers) was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eela ...

(also known as the Tamil Tigers) began an armed conflict with the Sri Lankan government. The clash peaked in the early 1980s and erupted into a full-scale civil war in 1983. Thousands were killed and many were displaced. Many

Tamils The Tamils ( ), also known by their endonym Tamilar, are a Dravidian peoples, Dravidian ethnic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Tamil language is o ...

left Sri Lanka and sought refugee status in places like Canada and the United Kingdom. Those lacking money or family connections were left behind. With nowhere else to go, these people left Sri Lanka by boat from the northern town of

Mannar Mannar may refer to the following places: India * Mannar, Alappuzha, a town in Chengannur Taluk, Kerala Sri Lanka * Mannar District, one of 25 districts in Sri Lanka ** Mannar Island, an island within the district ** Mannar Bridge, a bridge conne ...

, (18 km from the Indian coast) and arrived in

Mandapam Mandapam is a panchayat town in Ramanathapuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The famed Pamban Railway bridge and Vehicular bridge lie to the East of this Panchayat Town. Mandapam is Tamil Nadu’s largest refugee camp for Sri ...

, India. The state government of

placed these people in camps across the state. Currently there are approximately 70,000 refugees living in these camps. A five-year peace agreement was signed in 2002. However, the conflict resumed in 2005 and by 2008 there were an estimated 4000 deaths.

Treatment of the Refugees

According to http://www.adeptasia.org/ upon their arrival in India, the refugees are taken to the police station, quarantined and interrogated for 72 hours, before being offered shelter at camps. At Mandapam camp, residents are given a small stipend and rations: adults are allotted 500g of rice per day, children 400g. Malnutrition is visible in the children. Mandapam is Tamil Nadu’s largest refugee camp for Sri Lankans in India.

References

External links

* http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/oct/22spec.htm * http://sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/06-27_Refugees_Mandapam.php?uid=1806 * https://web.archive.org/web/20110707004510/http://ocha-gwapps1.unog.ch/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-6RVJUP?OpenDocument * https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE4DE1231F937A15755C0A961948260 * https://web.archive.org/web/20071026130735/http://www.adeptasia.org/Publication/127/Mandapam%20Fact%20File.pdf {{Portal, India Refugee camps in India History of Tamil Nadu Social history of Tamil Nadu