Archive for the ‘IDPs and Refugees’

A narrow escape and a great tragedy

I am the director of a convent in Madhu. Our convent was shifted from Adampan to Madhu at the end of January this year due to the heavy shelling & aerial attacks by the security forces. There were 25 school children with me in the convent in Madhu including 300 families also sheltered at the Church compound. The students at the Madhu Church used to travel in the bus that used to set off at Madhu at 7.30am toward Thadchanamadhu School. On 28th January this year, I had to go to Killinochchi to get a pass. I told the convent children not to go to school in my absence. Only one student from my convent went for basketball practice. On the way from Killinochchi to Mannar, I heard that there was a claymore mine blast on a passenger bus in Thatchanamadhu. This news was shook my heart. We rushed to Vellankullam hospital where I found dead bodies of schoolboys, most…

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Forgotten IDPs from the North

‘Cries from Puttalam’ For those familiar with the fairytales of the Grimm Brothers, the story of the young girl who equals her love for her father to her love for salt is no doubt a resounding one. Banished from her home by a wounded father who assumes her love for him to be trivial, she later gains grace when he realises the true depth of her love for him. However, for the Muslim refugees of Puttalam, life is no fairytale. The situation is certainly grim, and the taste of salt is now bitter. For these Muslims, who once led peaceful and productive lives in the north of the country, their lives were shattered when they were ordered to leave their homes in just two hours – or face dire consequences. Leaving everything they possessed behind them, they fled with their families, hoping no doubt to return when things calmed down. Little did they know that their lives, which had turned…

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  • 29 Feb, 2008
  • 1 Comment
  • IDPs and Refugees,
    Peace and Conflict

Sri Lankan refugees in India: “Are we the ones to bear this shame, are they the sacrifice”

I remembered John Denver’s passionate song dedicated to the refugees called “Fallen leaves”, as I sat in the Chennai airport, trying to make sense of what I had seen and heard and my own feelings, recalling my visit to Sri Lankans who had fled to India in fear of their lives and live in camps as refugees. One of the lines from the song that kept coming back to me was what I had put as the title to this reflection. At the airport, I myself felt a bit of a refugee, having come to the airport from an overnight bus. It had not been an easy journey, traveling by a night train, and spending the day at the store house that now serves as a home to 26 families, and then taking an overnight bus back, straight to the airport. And several other train, bus and auto rides in between. But I guess the difficulties in my journey pales…

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WHAT LIBERATION?

By Bhumi. Based on field trip from 10th – 14th December 2007. Introduction The East is ‘liberated’. It has been so since last June when the government requested it to be celebrated with ‘patriotic joy’. Over 300,000 civilians were displaced in the process and a majority have been ‘resettled’ since then. But a significant minority still remain in the IDP or transit camps with uncertainty hanging over their future. This report, based on short visits and a series of discussions with a number of people in the area – including some of the displaced people themselves – is to communicate some pressing issues and concerns in this process. It aims to highlight aspects of the human rights and humanitarian situation in the District with a specific focus on the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the newly resettled villages in Vaharai and West Batticaloa. In doing so, it hopes to inform and influence concerned policy makers and practitioners to think through…

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The divide between Muslims and Tamils: Perspective of an IDP

Opinion of Fathima, 24 and mother of one child from Karambe camp in Puttlam “I was eight year -old, when we were forced out of Jaffna. I was crying throughout the journey from Jaffna to Puttlam. We came to Puliyankulam, Vavuniya and Puttalam. It took three days for us to reach Puttlam. Initially I was in a camp along with the others. Food and immediate needs were met by various organizations. My other family members bring to my reluctant memory even now. I forgot every sweet memories of my mother town in Jaffna. I don’t know the present situation our house or the surroundings in Jaffna. The unbearable issues is that we lost our culture. I will not go back to Jaffna, because I am used to this place and people, and it’s very hard for me to go back and adjust. The Internally Displaced Persons are still called “Agathi” or refugee by several host community members. We did not…

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  • 14 Jan, 2008
  • 0 Comment
  • Ampara,
    IDPs and Refugees,
    Peace and Conflict

‘I want a decent Education’ – A twelve year old’s plea

The field officer was on his usual rounds… visiting camps accommodating internally displaced personnel (IDPs). A young boy trots along and asks him what he is looking for. The field officer states that he had come to look into the welfare of the people and what he could do for him. The boy asked the field officer when this displacement would come to an end which is chaotic and scary. The field officer sat and listened to him…… The playful young boy said….. I am twelve years old and have been a victim of displacement. I am from Muttur and attended T/Ahathiyar Vidyualam in Kanguvelli. The conflict in Muttur displaced me from my original village and had to move into an IDP camp in Trincomalee. My family along with many others took refuge in this camp. For many days, I was playing in the camp with many other young friends and suddenly realized, I miss the normal life of attending…

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To Jaffna and Back

[Editors note: Because of the length of this submission, readers may wish to use the Print Posts feature to create a fully formatted PDF of this article to read offline or in print. To do so, simply click on the Print Posts button on the right.] (Facts have been presented as related to me by the people I met in Jaffna without alteration or embellishment. The conversations I had with most of the people I met were in Tamil and have been translated here. Names of people and certain events have been omitted due to safety concerns) I write these events not as a criticism of any party or person but as an appeal to those concerned, to end the suffering of the people of Sri Lanka. I write under the encouragement of my friends and associates. Their words of support and concern tell me that there is still hope, despite the feeling of hopelessness concerning our collective inability to…

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Present situation in Jaffna: A video interview in English and Sinhala

A video interview on the present situation in the embattled city of Jaffna in the North of Sri Lanka with Ruki Fernando from the Law and Society Trust. Ruki recently wrote to Groundviews on his experiences from a trip to Jaffna (read Jaffna: Tears, blood and terror). For a Sinhala version of this video, please click here. For more videos, please visit the Vikalpa YouTube Channel. Repost This Article

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Jaffna: Tears, blood and terror

Few weeks before I went to Jaffna, Jehan Perera of the National Peace Council had visited Jaffna and captured the powerful testimony of one airline passenger saying “the only thing we can do is cry”. After my own visit to Jaffna, I wonder whether all I, other people in the rest of the country and the world can do is cry with people of Jaffna. Or whether some even care to cry. I remember that Jehan finished his article saying that people in Jaffna don’t want to be shut off or be forgotten. But my impression was that the government seemed to be intent on just that – shutting off people in Jaffna from rest of Sri Lanka and the world. I had spent fair amount of my youth traveling to various countries, including “hot spots”, taking hundreds of flights – and been through some arduous visa and immigration procedures. But no procedure was as frustrating as this. I spent…

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TMVP Protest In Batticaloa Today

The TMVP is organizing a big protest at the Weber stadium in Batticaloa today. According to the Pillayan-led TMVP, it is against LTTE atrocities in the East and the TNA. The TMVP also wants solutions to problems faced by people being resettled in the East, for example in terms of lack of jobs, all of which will go into a signed letter to be delivered to the President. TMVP Spokesman Azad Moulana says they expect 25,000 people from three regions of the east to voice their protest and gather at the stadium, which is scheduled to start at 9.30am. They may also try to bring together Karuna supporters to show their support for the above cause whether voluntarily or by some degree of force. The Karuna-Pillayan struggle is unfolding quite rapidly, as readers are no doubt aware, and the latest I have gathered, which I thought I would put down here, is that Karuna cadres are restricted to Ampara, while…

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  • 6 Dec, 2007
  • 12 Comments
  • IDPs and Refugees,
    Mannar,
    Peace and Conflict

Civilian cost of a humanitarian operation: miseries of liberated peoples of Musali and Naanatan divisions in Mannar waiting to go home

“We were not poor, we had our own house, we earned a reasonable income to feed ourselves and our children, but now, we have been forced to be poor and depend on others to feed our children and ourselves, and have no place to stay, our village is occupied by the Sri Lankan armed forces” was the comment of one women who was amongst the thousands forced to vacate their homes and livelihoods by Sri Lankan armed forces in their quest to seek control of land. When I visited Mannar with some friends and colleagues more than a month after yet another “humanitarian operation” by Sri Lankan armed forces, this time in Mannar, it became clear that civilians remains the only causality, with at least 12 having being killed and 1 disappeared. From what we heard from displaced people and church leaders, it was clear that militants associated with the LTTE had left long before government forces advanced, and the…

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Sri Lanka – Killing for Peace

Channel 4′s recent programme on Sri Lanka broadcast recently in England. As noted here, … the team making a documentary for Channel 4 was ordered to leave Sri Lanka’s embattled Jaffna peninsula on the orders of the country’s military [even though] reporter Sandra Jordan, camerawoman Siobhan Sinnerton and producer Dushiyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai had received permission from defence authorities in Colombo before flying into Jaffna. It was not clear why the Channel 4 crew were made to leave, but the private Daily Mirror newspaper quoted a military official as saying they were sent back for their own safety. “Around 100,000 British tourists holiday in Sri Lanka every year, but thanks to a clampdown on the international media, few realise that away from its famous beaches, a new chapter in the country’s 30-year civil war has opened, in which innocent civilians are paying a bloody price.” Repost This Article

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The cost of liberation…

I do not have any words to express my agony and the untold hardship that I had faced in my village during the liberation of Seelavathrai, south of Mannar by the Sri lanka Army on 01.09.04. .Having woken up to the deafening sounds of the artillery, followed by gunfire, I peeped through the window. I saw total mayhem. People running helter-skelter dragging their children, not aware where they were heading. I thought I will die along with my family. My husband said that it would be best for all of us also to run away from the house as the firing was getting very much louder and closer. Along with our children we went out of the house to be greeted with very close range firing… it was too late. We hurried back home and cramped under the bed… praying. My husband was in shock and my children were shivering. I heard a youth groaning… I peeped out once again…

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A veteran internally displaced person (IDP)

I am a veteran internally displaced person (IDP), if that is a status that I could be given and everybody could be proud of. I am originally from Vavuniya and the conflict many years ago displaced the whole of my village and many adjoining villages. We, as so many others, fled for our lives forgetting all our valuables, given the assurance that we will return within days. I was young and with my parents, we moved to be temporarily located in Kala – Oya, Anuradhapura. It was a massive hall without any partitions and deprived all of us from privacy. Change of clothes was also done in the open or we had to wait till it was quite dark. We lost our modesty as the days passed by. The once conservative families we were took a sharp turn within a few days. We had no source of income and we were a forgotten entity no sooner the euphoria of the…

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The fear of Jaffna

By Shanthi Sachithanandam “Last night was full moon Oh you Sinhala Buddhist For whom breaking even an egg on a full moon day is Adharma How come lives of Tamil people became More trivial than mere eggs? Oh Venerable Monks Walking with shaven heads within yellow robes discoloured, splashed with blood and sprinkled with ash Don’t open your scriptures but your hearts Tell me, is this your Dharma? Is it just, To deem the lives of Tamil people more trivial than mere eggs?” – V.I.S Jeyapalan It was 1997 and the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) had captured most parts of Jaffna peninsula as a result of the ‘Riviresa’ operations. The aid organisation I was working for decided to start its work in Jaffna. As were and are the regulations, we had to seek military permission to travel to, and work, in Jaffna. I was asked to contact the Secretary of the Defence Ministry. “What is the work that you do?”…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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