The United Nations reported that as of July 17, 2009, the Sri Lankan government was detaining 281,621 people in 30 military-guarded camps in the four northern districts of Vavuniya, Mannar, Jaffna, and Trincomalee.

In violation of international law, the Sri Lankan goverment has since March 2008 confined virtually all civilians displaced by the fighting between government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in detention camps, euphemistically called “welfare centres” by the government. Only a small number of camp residents, mainly the elderly, have been released to host families and institutions for the elderly.

“Keeping several hundred thousand civilians who had been caught in the middle of a war penned in these camps is outrageous,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Haven’t they been through enough? They deserve their freedom, like all other Sri Lankans.”

Camp residents are allowed to leave only for emergency medical care, and then frequently only with military escort. Inside the camps, humanitarian workers are prohibited, on threat of being barred from the camps, from discussing with residents the fighting in the final months of the conflict or possible human rights abuses.

Link to HRW