Internally displaced people (IDPs) and their vulnerability : a case study of Muslim IDPs in Sri Lanka

The purpose of this article is to examine how a minority group has been impacted by an open-conflict and assess the vulnerability of such group by taking a case study of internally displaced Muslims in Sri Lanka\u27s conflict from 1983 to 2009. The prolonged armed conflict, which started in 1983 between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has claimed 90,000 lives and left 950,000 IDPs from three ethnic groups namely the Tamils (82%), Muslims (14%) and Sinhalese (4%). Most (65%) of these IDPs are poor and live in IDP camps within the country. According to the Ministry of Resettlement and Disaster Relief Service, about 560,000 IDPs live in 540 IDP camps in 14 administrative districts in Sri Lanka. In 1990, when the armed conflict escalated severally between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE, the later used a strategy which became known as ethnic-cleansing and forcibly expelled about 75,000 Muslims from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The displaced Muslims moved to the North-western Province (Puttalam district) and have been living there in 145 IDP camps in four administrative divisions: Kalpitiya, Puttalam, Mundal, and Vannathavillu. The life in IDP camps has affected men and women of all ages and children physically, psychologically, socially, economically and educationally. This was the first time that a certain ethnic group (Muslims) was expelled by the LTTE and forced to live in IDP camps in the past 19 years in the Puttalam district of Sri Lanka