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Sri Lanka's government has ordered the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to scale down its activities in the North. The Geneva-based humanitarian agency had told the media on Sunday.
"The Ministry Of Foreign affairs had asked us to scale down our activities in the North". The Head of delegation of ICRC in Sri Lanka, Yves Giovannoni told the BBC. Hand over to local agencies "ICRC will have to discuss the details with the relevent authorities on how we will hand over some of our activities to local agencies". he added. ICRC was the only humanitarian agency which had access to the war zone during the last stages of the conflict between the government forces and the Tamil rebels. Since the end of the fighting, the agency continued to operate in the former war zone. ICRC Jaffna office provides artificial limbs to over 2000 amputees while the office in Vavuniya help families visiting detained relatives. Natural end However, according to the head of the ICRC, after the ending of the conflict in the end of May 2009, They are only working through a transitional period like they do in any other country. "Its natural that this transition period come to an end". He said. A government official said Sri Lanka's presidential secretariate would provide more details shortly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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India's frustration with Sri Lanka over Tamils