Charles Haviland . Reports from Colombo

	Landmine

The Department for International Development, DFID, is to dispense the money through a charity, the Mines Advisory Group, and says it’ll help 280,000 internal refugees return to their villages more quickly.

This grant of 850,000 dollars is the first segment of a five-million-dollar sum which DFID is devoting to demining and other activities enabling displaced Tamils to go back to their villages. Much of northern Sri Lanka is strewn with mines or unexploded bombs.

Experts from the Mines Advisory Group will use the money in three ways: quickly detecting areas that are free of contamination; rapidly clearing stretches that are only lightly affected; and marking heavily mined areas to keep people out while they are painstakingly cleared.

Britain has urged Sri Lanka to make a coherent plan to return home more than a quarter of a million people currently detained in controversial government-run camps.

The Sri Lankan authorities say they need more time and money to demine and rehabilitate people’s home areas. But Britain’s international development minister says London is ready to help civilians go back home as soon as their areas are cleared.