He said that they moved out most of the staff and a lot of equipment last week and some are still in Killinochchi.

“There were protests around some of the UN offices in Killionochchi and they were opposing our officers leaving from Killinochchi”, he said.

Current Plan

“The current plan is to relocate near Vavuniya where we are closest to the A-9 access road”, he said

Responding to claims that UN had not brought back some equipment from Wanni, he said they have agreed with the government a list of equipment that they were bringing out.

“Of course it is a compromise between the speed which we can leave Wanni and the amount of equipment actually taking with us”, he added.

The government in its request to UN staff to leave said that we should leave as soon as possible so obviously they understand that we will not be able to take absolutely everything at short notice, UN spokesman said.

“We have agreed to take most of the sensitive equipment and we will not leave any vehicles in the Wanni.” he said.

Asked about how they plan their programme of work in the future he said that it is difficult to predict because there is heavy fighting.