Sri Lanka pledges to resettle nearly 300,000 displaced civilians within four months

President Mahinda Rajapaksa made the pledge at a meeting with U.N. Undersecretary General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe amid international criticism of the government's treatment of those displaced by the civil war with the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Rajapaksa told Pascoe he expects that new demining equipment will allow all the ethnic Tamil civilians in the camps to be resettled by the end of January, a statement from the president's office said.

Sri Lanka has said it can't send the displaced people home until their villages are cleared of mines and it can't release those in the camps because of fears some of them may be rebel fighters.

About 280,000 ethnic Tamil civilians have been detained in the camps since the island nation's civil war ended four months ago.

Human rights groups say the government is illegally detaining the war refugees, who are from the country's minority Tamil population. Aid groups say the camps are overcrowded and prone to disease, and fear monsoon rains expected next month will create a public health crisis.