CHENNAI, India - More than 11,000 Tamil refugees have fled to India since January to escape renewed fighting between the Sri Lankan army and separatist rebels and more are likely to come, officials said on Thursday. The figure includes a batch of about 500 refugees who travelled by boat to reach Mandapam camp in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state late Wednesday, said a senior government administrator from Ramanathapuram district.Ramanathapuram, 700 kilometres (434 miles) from Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu state, is the district nearest to Sri Lanka, ravaged by ethnic conflict since the early 1980s. “So far 3,310 (Tamil) families have crossed over since January this year,” said the Ramanathapuram official who asked to remain anonymous. “In figures, we are talking of 11,193 refugees,” he said.
India, whose Tamil population totals 62.2 million, shares close ethnic and cultural links with the Tamil community in Sri Lanka, who living mainly in the islandÂ’s north and the east.
The refugee tally was confirmed by C.P. Chandrahasan, who heads the Organisation of Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation, a non-government organisation in Chennai. “With the new refugees, we have more than 70,000 displaced Sri Lankan Tamils who have sheltered in India since the early 1990s,” said Chandrahasan, a Sri Lankan Tamil living in India since 1983.
Chandrahasan warned of more refugees streaming into India because of the escalating violence in Sri Lanka.