Last Thursday was a special day for the people of Pallikuda – a remote fishing village on the coast of Poonakary in Kilinochchi, the former de-facto capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

World Vision distributed 28 fishing boats with outboard motors to 28 families who had returned to the village and were striving to rebuild their lives once again.

“This is a wonderful gift and will help me and my family to get back on our feet again” said Joseph Mariadas who had spent nearly eight months in one of the displacement camps with his wife and five children before returning home.

Like most of his community, Joseph and his family had fled the village in 2008 when the conflict intensified and they had only the few treasured possessions that they were able to hastily cram into knapsacks which they had carried with them ever since.

This week marks the first anniversary of the end of the 26 year long war between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. When the war ended, over a quarter of a million persons from the north who had fled the conflict were housed in displacement camps in the north posing a huge challenge for the government and the humanitarian community to support them.

At the end of April 2010 an estimated 210,000 IDPs had been released from the camps and resettled in their homes or home districts. Some 72,000 still remain in camps awaiting demining and other clearance certification to enable them to return.