Confronting the Complexity of Loss

Some told me that he was initially held at the Omanthai Tamil Vidyalayam [a
school], and that the Army had later come and taken him away.
I was expecting my husband to return to me. I was scared, but my mind didn’t
waver; so I waited for his return. It has now been more than 5 years. I still do not
have any news of him.
While we were in the camp, we were enclosed like cattle. They would throw food
and water bottles at the crowd. There would be pieces of strings and fibres in the
rice and curries. There would be worms in the brinjal curry. Later, we started
cooking with the items they gave us. Our relatives would come to see us.
Everybody would have to shout and yell to communicate. There would be a fence
between our relatives and us. In the beginning, our relatives could not give us
money or food items. They would have to line up in order to meet us. Later the
military permitted our relatives to aid us. We were finally released and I returned
to Viddathal Theevu on 2 December 2009.
Another participant from Mannar related the following story.
I had a daughter. She had an appearance that made her look older than she was.
When she ‘attained age’ at the age of just 10 years, she looked as old as 15 years.
When she was actually 15 years old and in the 10 th Grade, she joined ‘the
movement’ due to the compulsory recruitment rule. During the last stages of the
war, she decided to surrender to the Army. However, the movement took her
away and prevented her from surrendering. Later, on 7 April 2009, when the
Army surrounded Puthumathalan, Mullivaikal, they captured her and took her
away to an unknown place.
After my daughter was captured, she went missing. I then fell very ill. I was
affected in body and mind due to stress. I’m still alive today only due to the
support of my husband and four other children. We became very depressed
because we were being repeatedly displaced. At the end of May 2009, we were
placed in a camp in Vavuniya, and we remained there in the hope that our
daughter would come back to us. During that time, nobody came forward to
guide us or aid us in finding our daughter.
We would have been at peace if we all died as a family. We felt the pain of not
knowing our daughter’s whereabouts. People often say, if the Army takes a son,
there is hope that he will come home one day. But if they take a daughter, people
say very different things. They speak of how she might be raped and would come
back home with her child. Whatever happens, she is still my daughter. My mind
told me that it was enough if she just came home. But she never came home.
2.9 Riot in Aluthgama
A participant based in Darga Town, Aluthgama, presented the following account of the
Aluthgama riots, which took place on 15 June 2014.
It all started with a rumour that there was a personal dispute between a monk and
some Muslims in the area. The dispute went on for about two days. Later
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