Recalling war trauma
In June 1990, eleven boats carrying around 500 Sri Lankan Tamils arrived in Danushkodi, Tamil Nadu, India. Four pregnant women and dozens of kids who were tethered to their mothers for safety were among those in the boats. Most were barefoot. They had no life jackets. With only the clothes they were wearing, they were stranded at sea with no food, water or hopes for the future. They were forced to experience unbelievable hardships as they fled their homeland due to the armed conflict between Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). Indian fishermen charged Rs.5,000 from each Sri Lankan for the boat service. The desperate victims sold all their possessions to make the payments.
After three days on the sea, they were found by the Indian coastguard officials who thoroughly examined them and sent them to Mandapam, the largest Sri Lankan refugee camp in the Tamil Nadu state. This was only one group of Sri Lankans who fled the country during the war. According to reports, the exodus of Sri Lankan Tamils in the Northern and Eastern provinces started from the beginning of Black July in 1983. Between 1983 and 1987, at least 134,000 Sri Lankan Tamils were officially estimated to have arrived in Tamil Nadu. When the war intensified in June 1990, the next round of Tamils arrived in India. The third round was reported to have arrived in 1995.
Reports of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that during the final phase of the war, there was a massive displacement of the population in the North, with some 276,000 displaced. UNHCR’S most recent statistics show that at the end of 2010, there were some 140,000 Sri Lankan refugees with a majority of 70,000 in 112 refugee camps and another 32,000 living outside camps in Tamil Nadu. Currently, the Commissionerate of Rehabilitation and Welfare of Non-resident Tamils of Tamil Nadu is monitoring about 19,451 Sri Lankan Tamil families consisting of about 63,351 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees accommodated in 108 camps in 24 districts in the state. The camp in Gummidipoondi, situated 46.6 km away from the capital Chennai, is a shelter for close to 1000 families.
Daily Mirror visited Sri Lankan Tamils in the Gummidipoondi refugee camp. They were delighted to see a Sri Lankan visiting the camp. Some of them have almost forgotten Sinhala, as the language was hardly used by them in the past 27 years. Still, they spoke quite well in Sinhala.