Sri Lanka pays compensation for killings

The Sri Lankan government has paid compensation to the families of nineteen people killed at a rehabilitation camp for Tamil detainees.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who handed the money to the families, said she believed that groups such as the Tamil Tigers and hardline Sinhala nationalist parties were behind the incident at Bandarawela camp last October in which twenty-six people died.

Human rights activists and moderate Tamil politicians say the role of the security forces in the incident needs independent investigation.

They say the payment comes just before the UN Commission on Human rights is due to disuss the situation in Sri Lanka at the end of March.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service