In October 1990 the LTTE ordered the removal of the entire Muslim population from the northern districts of Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and parts of Vavuniya. The expulsions began at Chavakachcheri on 15 October and culminated in Jaffna town on 30 October, where residents were given two hours to leave; deadlines elsewhere ranged from two hours to a week. Departing families were permitted to keep only about 150 rupees in cash and a single set of clothes, with money, jewellery and property taken by LTTE cadres, and at least 35 businessmen were abducted for ransom. Around 75,000 people, almost the entire community, were displaced, most of them to Puttalam district outside the province, where many remained in welfare camps for two decades. A Sri Lankan Citizens' Commission documented the expulsion in 2011; the LTTE offered a qualified apology in 2002, and return has been partial and contested over land.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ordered the entire Muslim population out of the five northern districts at gunpoint and confiscated their property
The 1981 census counted about 62,000 Muslims in the Northern Province, concentrated in Mannar and Jaffna; projected forward at national growth rates this gives roughly 72,000-80,000 by October 1990. No census was possible in the north during the war, so the figure is an estimate.
The expulsion was carried out largely without mass killing: the Citizens' Commission records threats at gunpoint, abductions for ransom and comprehensive dispossession rather than a significant death toll. Deaths from the hardship of two decades of camp life in Puttalam have not been quantified.
The Citizens' Commission documented the confiscation of cash, jewellery and houses and the looting and destruction of shops belonging to expelled Muslims.
Sri Lanka