According to Mr Weerakoon, up to the end of August, 180,000 IDPs have voluntarily left their present habitations seeking resettlement. Some 733,000 are yet displaced, another 66,000 are in camps in India and 700,000 form a substantial diaspora of migrants in other countries. At peace talks in Thailand, the government and the LTTE agreed that the most important priorities were stepping up humanitarian mine action and accelerating resettlement and rehabilitation of IDPs. Mr Weerakoon said that the overall relief and rehabilitation effort calls for not only physical structures such as irrigation systems, community buildings, industrial units and road networks, but also for human resources to be restored to build back sorely needed institutional capacities.
Once peace is achieved Sri Lanka expects the economy to boom and large-scale infrastructure development, which would lead towards the return of Sri Lankans abroad either by their own choice or through voluntary return programmes, said Mr Weerakoon. In the near term, Sri Lanka intends to make arrangements for the return refugees in India.