COLOMBO: Sri Lankan authorities sent home nearly 10,000 war refugees today amid growing international concern for the nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians still detained in

government-run camps.

The civilians were displaced during a military offensive that crushed the Tamil Tiger rebel group in May and ended the island’s decades-old civil war.

Since then, the displaced ethnic Tamils have been confined to overcrowded, military-run camps, where their movements are restricted and sanitation is poor. Aid workers fear conditions will become dire when monsoon rains start next month. Today, 9,920 people were taken home by bus to their villages in the east and north, said Senaka Ubesinghe, a government spokesman. Another 74 Tamil university students were sent home, he said. International rights groups have said holding the civilians is an illegal form of collective punishment and urged the government to allow them to leave to live with relatives, friends or host families in the area.

The government says it cannot release the civilians until it finishes screening them for potential rebel fighters, and until land mines are cleared from their villages in the north.

Rights workers say the screening process has dragged on longer than expected. On Wednesday, the government said it will release some refugees to the custody of relatives once applications from relatives

are processed and screening is completed. The government has said it aims to return 80 percent of the displaced to their homes by the end of the year. The rebels fought for a separate state for Tamils for more than 25 years, claiming discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. It is estimated that between 80,000 to 100,000 were killed in the conflict.

Also today, a magistrate

in Colombo granted bail

to two former rebel officials held in government custody for more than four months, said a court official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Granted bail were the rebels’ former

media spokesman, Velayutham Dayanithi, whose nom de guerre is Daya Master, and an interpreter for the group’s political wing, known only as George.