Around 300,000 Tamil civilians, a minority group in the country, were displaced during the final battles between the Sri Lankan soldiers and the LTTE in the northern part of the country. The government had pledged to resettle the displaced people within 180 days, starting May.

The LTTE had been fighting for more than two decades to carve out an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the country for more than two decades before they were defeated in May.