Navy steps up vigil as Lankan refugees pour in

The inflow of refugees which began as a trickle early this year, has become a significant stream with large groups landing on Tamil Nadu shores near the small coastal village of Mandapam every day. The 102 refugees who arrived in six boats today had fled their Tirukkadalur village in Trincomalee district in Eastern Lanka. On Wednesday, 54 Tamil refugees had arrived from the same village, fearing reprisal attacks, sandwiched as they were between Sinhalese dominated villages.

The refugee camp in Mandapam near Rameshwaram in Tamil Nadu, the largest in the state, had earlier held 758 refugees. But with the 1,018 arrivals since January, the number has gone up to 1,776. Admiral Prakash said the refugees came whenever there were incidents of violence in Sri Lanka. ‘‘It is nothing alarming and we are keeping a close watch,’’ he said, adding that both Indian and Lankan naval forces had been cooperating closely in recent years ‘‘to check’’ possible incursions by the LTTE, smuggling of arms, supplies or medicines from India to Lanka.

On a recent claim by the LTTE that it had sovereign rights over sea and airspace contiguous to land areas controlled by it, Admiral Prakash said: ‘‘We have no view on this. It is an internal matter of Sri Lanka…We recognise only Sri Lanka as a sovereign country. We cannot recognise any other force.”