The Sri Lanka Country Director of USAID and Sri Lanka's
Commissioner General for Rehabilitation today handed over equipment
to help over 550 former Tamil Tiger combatants to start new
civilian jobs in eastern Sri Lanka.

The handover in Batticaloa, which included canoes, pumps,
engines and tool kits for rice paddy cultivation and fishing, was
part of a USAID-funded IOM pilot project to help reintegrate the
demobilized former rebels into civilian life.

The Information, Counseling and Referral Services (ICRS) project
aims to reintegrate up to 1,000 former members of the armed Tamil
groups LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and TMVP (Tamil
Makkal Viduthalai Pulikel).

"Reintegrating former combatants into society, retraining them
and helping them to find jobs and generate income, is not easy, but
is an essential first step towards stabilization, peace and
economic recovery," says IOM Sri Lanka Chief of Mission Mohammed
Abdiker.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, USAID Sri Lanka Director
Rebecca Cohn said, "I want to congratulate the individuals who are
here with us today for the important step you have taken in your
lives. We applaud your courage and wish you success, knowing that
this can have a powerful confidence-building effect for the much
larger numbers we hope will embark on a similar journey in the
weeks and months ahead."

Commissioner General for Rehabilitation Brigadier Sudantha
Ranasinghe, speaking at the ceremony, said: "This is a very good
example of reintegration assistance that can be replicated in
the Northern Province. It is important to do community
rehabilitation and to stop the labeling of this group of
people."

The Batticaloa project follows another pilot reintegration
project implemented by IOM at the request of the government in
2003. The RECLAIM programme successfully helped some 600 former
combatants return to civilian life.

IOM has implemented post-conflict disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration programmes that, over the past 20 years, have
helped over 300,000 former combatants and 1.5 million of their
dependents in 25 countries to return to normal civilian lives.

Sri Lanka has been an IOM member state since 1990 and IOM has
had a major presence in the country, including six sub-offices in
the north and east, since the December 2004 tsunami.  In
addition to the reintegration of former combatants, IOM Sri Lanka's
activities include emergency response and reconstruction, technical
cooperation in migration management, capacity building, counter
trafficking, and return and reintegration.

For more information, please contact:

Tanja Cerovina

IOM Colombo

Email: "mailto:tcerovina@iom.int">tcerovina@iom.int

Stacey Winston

Email "mailto:swinston@iom.int">swinston@iom.int

or

Passanna Gunasekera

Email: "mailto:pgunasekera@iom.int">pgunasekera@iom.int