There was what many feared was an indication of things to come when sudden storms flooded these vast camps last month, submerging toilets, contaminating water and damaging thousands of huts.The monsoon is due next month.

An official of the UK-based Catholic Fund for Overseas Development or CAFOD, Geoff O’Donoghue, has just visited the camps with two British bishops, and said one of the military officers in charge there is overseeing an extension of the camp to ease crowding.

Speaking to BBC correspondent Charles Haviland in Colombo Geoff O’Donoghue said “As the monsoon comes in there is deep concern, both expressed by the brigadier in the camp and workers in the camp and others outside that a potential crisis could brew there if the rains come through and those camps are still as congested”

The Sri Lankan authorities are still preventing nearly all those in the camps from leaving. The government has just announced, though, that relatives or friends of those inside can now apply to accommodate them.

Such relatives, like the camp dwellers, will also be subject to screening for possible links with the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church has proposed that 12,000 of the displaced people be allowed to move to a large local church and shrine as a first step to returning home.

O’Donoghue of CAFOD said the plan had passed several stages of government approval.