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A Sri Lankan government plan to build entire new towns for homeless tsunami victims has infuriated Muslims unwilling to live in mixed neighborhoods. | Muslims don't mix well with others |
The uproar began last week when President Chandrika Bandaranaike laid the first brick for a brand new town to be called Siribopura, two miles in virgin jungle from what used to be the southern coastal town of Hambamtota.The blueprints call for housing 6,000 people left homeless in the Dec. 26 tsunami, The Independent reported. Siribopura will be multi-ethnic, mixing Muslim, Tamil and Singhalese communities in three-story blocks of apartments, and will also contain a "multi-ethnic religious center," the first of its kind to be built in Sri Lanka. In the rubble of Hambamtota, the mosque was about the only structure not washed away. "This is where we've always worshipped," said one local Muslim man. "We don't want that to change." The government plans to build about 60 other "harmonized" towns inland from other devastated sites. |