THEN & NOW

SRI LANKA, 120 YEARS LATER

Imagine an island brimming with tea plantations and sprawling jungle, surrounded by palm-lined beaches. Every now and then you see an elephant lumber past with a rider on its back, as women in bright saris float across the green plains like jewelcoloured mirages. But what’s this – a street called Boer Road?

Indeed, the island of Sri Lanka might be the last place on earth you’d expect to find such a place, but the street is real – each of the paving stones was laid down by Boer prisoners of war! My fiancée Simone Zents and I travelled to Sri Lanka in 2019 to visit her parents, and we designed the trip so we could simultaneously follow the trail of some of the Boer prisoners on the island.

During the Anglo-Boer War (1899 – 1902), the British army set up camps for Boer prisoners of war on islands like Bermuda, St Helena and Ceylon. (Ceylon was a British colony until 1948, but the island’s name only changed to Sri Lanka in 1972.)

The ship carrying the first group of prisoners of war – the Mohawk – docked in Ceylon on 9 August 1900. In total, more than 5 000 prisoners would be taken to the island during the war.

There were five camps: Diyatalawa,

Mount Lavinia, Ragama, Hambantota and Urugasmanhandiya. During our visit we only managed to visit the first two. Diyatalawa, also known as “Boer Town”, is one of the camps in the interior of the island. It was split into two settlements: Kruger’s Dorp, where the Transvalers stayed, and Steyn’s Ville, for those from the Orange Free State. These days, Diyatalawa is a military base. The history surrounding the Anglo-Boer War is carefully preserved because Sri Lankans see it as part of their country’s history as well. Some of Diyatalawa’s original structures, where the prisoners stayed, are still standing. Most are used as administrative buildings, with one housing the Institute for Surveying and Mapping.

In 1914, a monument was erected in memory of the Boers who died in Diyatalawa. It’s more than a hundred years old and still in good condition, although some of the engravings have been worn away and are not very legible.

We also visited some Boer graves in Borella – a suburb of the capital, Colombo. The graves are in the area’s community cemetery. And lastly, we took a turn past the upmarket Mount

Lavinia Hotel, where there also used to be a camp. The huts where the prisoners were kept no longer exist, but the hotel itself used to be the colonial governor general’s residence and prisoners are said to have bathed in the lukewarm ocean at a nearby beach.

What a fascinating and melancholy journey it was, to follow in the footsteps of men who died so far from home.

Sources: Advancing Heritage Tourism in the Central Karoo: The South African War Battlefields Route by Eben Proos & Johan Hattingh; Boere Krygsgevangenes in Ceylon by Pieter van der Merwe

The muddy streets of Diyatalawa, where Boer prisoners of war were kept during the Anglo-Boer War. Known to some as “Boer Town”, the camp was originally built to house 2 500 prisoners and 1 000 guards and staff.

Above: A few huts from Diyatalawa’s prison camp as they look today. The corrigated iron structures still have their original hut numbers above the mantel. Most of these buildings are now used for administrative purposes for the Sri Lankan army. Clockwise from far left: A close-up of an original prisoners’ hut in Diyatalawa. Eben Proos next to the monument erected in 1914 to honour the Boers who died in Diyatalawa. The grave of TJ Kruger, a boer buried in Borella, a suburb of Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo.

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