Confronting the Complexity of Loss

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My son was at the Mullaitivu camp when it was attacked in July 1996. It had not
been a long time since my son had joined the military. After three months of
training, his first appointment was to the Mullaitivu camp. When he reached the
camp, he sent a letter saying that he had reached there safely.
We got the news that the camp was attacked the following day. My son was just
19 when he joined the Army. He was my eldest son. When he joined the Army, I
was serving in the Civil Defence Force.
After a few months, I received a letter stating that my son was missing. At the
time, my wife was working in the Middle East. At first, I didn’t even tell her that
our son had gone missing. I thought it would be too much for her. But about two
years later, a death certificate was sent to us. So she came to know about our
son’s death only when she returned home that year. Now my wife is suffering
from depression. She has not worked since our son’s death and never left the
country again.
2.7 The final stages of the war
A participant from Kilinochchi shared her personal experience during the final stages of
the war.
My husband, children and I lived very peacefully before 2008. My husband was
involved in agriculture in Vattakachchi. ‘The movement’ [the LTTE] asked my
husband to join their ranks, but because our children were young and since we
did not have any other source of income, they did not force him to join. However,
we donated a small amount of money to them monthly. We lived in
Ramanathapuram till 2008, and then fled to Mathalan when the fighting became
worse.
In Mathalan, we stayed in a small hut along the open shoreline. We made sacks
using the clothes we brought with us, filled them with sand, laid them out and
placed planks on them. I stayed in this temporary bunker with my husband and
children.
Our relatives were also in this same place. When the fighting became very
intense in March [2009], shells would fall on us and explode near us. Most of the
time, we wouldn’t know where the shells were coming from. They kept falling.
At times, we wouldn’t even hear the shell coming in—just the explosion. Bullets
would come from both sides, and we were in the middle of it all. One day, a shell
landed near our bunker and four people died right next to us. Another shell attack
injured my mother and I. We were then moved to the Pulmottai Hospital and then
placed in the Pathaviya Hospital. My husband remained at the bunker.
I later learnt that my husband had died on 21 March 2009. I don’t know what
happened to him. My husband’s brother and other relatives buried my husband’s
body.
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