Sri Lanka to free war-displaced Tamils

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Sri Lanka announced Saturday it will release 130,000 war-displaced Tamils living in a heavily guarded camp near Vavuniya since May.

The Tamils will be free to leave Dec. 1, said Basil Rajapaksa, the head of the Tamil resettlement program and brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

As many as 300,000 Tamils were put in the squalid camp after the Sri Lankan military defeated Tamil rebels this year, CNN reported Saturday.

The United Nations for months had pressed for release of the Tamils, while the government had said it needed time to sort refugees from rebels hiding in the camp.

The government plans to resettle the refugees by the end of January, Rajapaksa said. Many of them are from the Wanni region, which has yet to be cleared of land mines from the war.