Donors concerned over conditions of Tamil camps: UN official

International donors have expressed "frustration" over conditions in Sri Lanka’s camps housing the displaced Tamils civilians, and are less likely to provide funding if they continue to restrict freedom of movement of the community, a top UN official has said.

Neil Buhne, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Sri Lanka, was quoted as saying by a UN-supported agency that there was "frustration over the closed nature of the camps".

Buhne told this to the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), which acts as a news agency focussing on humanitarian issues.

"Among the donors we talked to, there is a hesitation in terms of their assistance to camps over the next three or four months, if there’s not significant progress on people returning, or larger numbers of people being allowed to leave," Buhne was quoted as saying by IRIN, which is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"Donor fatigue is really in respect to continuing these closed camps...Donors have not said no, but they have indicated their concerns to us," he underlined.

Nearly 300,000 people fled the fighting in the country’s northeast in the final months of the 26-year civil war between the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May.