Government demands UNICEF staff members expulsion

Government has asked to remove some of international members of the UNICEF staff station in Colombo blaming that they had participated demonstration in the Capital,beyond their scope of legitimate functions,foreign ministry officials said.

Acting Foreign Secretary summoned the country representative of the United Nations' Children's Fund and demanded the removal of local members of the staff too who also took part in the demonstartion against the killing of two Red Cross volunteer workers few months ago.

The latest move against the UNICEF,is one of the series of controversy they faced within two weeks.

Sri Lanka Customs detained a container brought down by the UNICEF with a load of "Meals Ready to Eat"or MRE, after JVP raised suspicious over it saying that the food was brought to handed over to the LTTE.

The UNICEF denied the accusation by the JVP and said that it is normal routine to bring MRE for use of their staff working in emergency situation.

Earlier UNICEF was also blamed by the JVP-a nationalistic leftist party, which demand government should ban all UN officials visit to Sri Lanka in the future-funding LTTE through the TRO,the organization banned in Sri Lanka since this week.

UNICEF last week denied the JVP charges and said those remarks made their staff security in endanger.