page_title: Sri Lankan Civil War
section_title: Economic cost
hierarchical_section_title: Sri Lankan Civil War / Impact / Economic cost
caption_attribution_description: Displaced persons from the civil war on Sri Lanka. Original caption: due to govt restrictions on the transporation of humanitarian relief and construction materials the IDPs must live in the open air or in makeshift shelters
context_page_description: The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in the island country of Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, there was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Velupillai Prabhakaran led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north and the east of the island due to the continuous discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government, as well as the 1956, 1958 and 1977 anti-Tamil pogroms and the 1981 burning of the Jaffna Public Library carried out by the majority Sinhalese mobs, in the years following Sri Lanka's independence from Britain in 1948. After a 26-year military campaign, the Sri Lankan military defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, bringing the civil war to an end.
  For over 25 years, the war caused significant hardships for the population, environment and the economy of the country, with an initial estimated 80,000–100,000 people killed during its course.
context_section_description: The total economic cost of the 25-year war is estimated at US$200 billion. This is approximately 5 times the GDP of Sri Lanka in 2009. Sri Lanka had spent US$5.5 billion only on Eelam War IV, which saw the end of LTTE. The government had spent US$2.25 billion to develop the Northern Province under the "Uthuru Wasanthaya" program after the end of war. Measuring the opportunity cost of war, a report by Strategic Foresight Group states that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) remained stagnant during periods of civil war and that net FDI increased during periods of ceasefire.
caption: Shelter built from tarp and sticks. Pictured are displaced persons from the civil war in Sri Lanka
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "DCF 1.0", "Image Make": "Minolta Co., Ltd.", "Image Model": "DiMAGE 7i", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "picnik.com", "Image DateTime": "2008:08:23 10:15:37", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "270", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 0, 4, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, 22, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/180", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:08:22 11:13:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:08:22 11:13:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "71/10", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "24361/8200", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "51/5", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[320, 240, 80, 48]", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Custom", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "39", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}