CMP/MN/MW/KUM/02
My name is J.Santhanaluxmy. I studied up to Grade 5. I got married at the age of 30. I lived with my husband only for five years. I got one son and a daughter. My husband left me and got married again when my daughter was 2 years old and son was 1 year old. After that my family survived on my earning. I did farming, home gardens and small trades. After 10 to 12 years the war broke out. We got displaced from place to place; we would stay in a place for four days or for three months, like that we moved to Mullaitheevu, Kilinochchi and went to Vavuniya.
Even though the situation was such, I educated both my children. I did that facing so many troubles and difficulties. My daughter was studying O/L when they caught her. My son was in Grade 10. He started working realizing the difficulties I was going through. He would do some small works and bring money for our expenses. He would also take care of the cow, and do gardening. He would work hard. My daughter was very good at her studies. When she was studying for A/L after completing O/L the war started again. We went to Vavuniya. We stayed in Vavuniya Kamini and Veerapuram for nine months. After staying there for nine months, 2010 November we came back to our own village.
I lost all my belongings, the house and the comfort. After coming back I made my daughter study for A/L. Then she started studying for nursing. It was my son who supported her education through his farming and gardening. One of my younger brothers died in the war leaving behind his five children and their mother. Both families lived together, so we had to educate all the children. my daughter completed her studies and now being trained for job. My son wanted to take a license saying that he had now grown up and therefore cannot do farming. So I bought an Auto for him.
He looked after the five children and their mother and our family – mother and two children, with his earnings from driving an auto. All five children are studying. The eldest is studying A/L, next one is in Grade 8 and the other one in Grade 7. Meanwhile my sister’s husband got sick. They had one daughter and they couldn’t afford to educate her. I brought her with me and educated her. She is sitting for the Grade 5 Scholarship exams this time. Our life is going on with such difficulties, but now our problems have lessened.
Out of 8 children – 5 brother’s, 1 sister’s and 2 mine - only one is doing a government job. Son is running an Auto, I wish to educate all seven of them and make them government servants, and I have confidence that I can do it.
In the year 2006, one day around 8 pm, when the military started to move forward, out of fear that the Movement would take my daughter away, my son and I took her to Madu and kept her there in hiding for 3 months. We both returned and stayed at our place. At 8 pm they started shelling. Shells began to fall all over, we couldn’t figure out where to find protection. We ran around all over, shells were falling aimlessly all over. We got ready to run away from that place and heard that everybody who stayed in Madu were chased away. I had to bring my daughter back. It was difficult; members of the Movement were standing on the road. Parents didn’t know how to bring their children back, we dressed them up in different cloths and made them hide among the things we carried and brought them back to our village. After 3, 4 months the members of the Movement came and took them promising that they would bring them back. They took her with them and for five months I couldn’t spot her. I didn’t know where she was. No place was left without searching for her. I wandered around on roads like a mad person. I would never forget that in my life.
Finally, after five months they said I could see her. I went to see her from here. The place she was kept in was horrible. I was heartbroken, I started to shout at them and met the person in charge and cried. I cried saying “I was bringing her up with much difficulties without the support of a father ever since she was one year old. You are keeping her in such state. I need her in my late life, I wouldn’t leave this place without her, if not I would die here” saying that I started to bang my head in a wall there. Then the senior person in charge came and said “mother don’t cry, she is a child without the support of a father, we would release her, but the son has to join”. At that situation I was proud about my intelligence and with the confidence that I would somehow save him, I agreed to handover him.
I told them that I would give my son to them when he reaches that age, and would give my daughter too at the right age, and asked them to release my daughter, and they did. 9 months after her release my son became 17 years old and they took him. For three days they have locked him in a room, I searched him for three days. Finally they kept him locked for three days in Mullaitheevu. I went there and said I cannot build my house, to do that I need him, and told them that I would bring him back after completing the house and brought him with me.
I hid him in a bunker for 9 days. I was so determined to save him, I thought no matter who comes, somehow I have to save my children. I wouldn’t die even the Movement shoot me, doesn’t matter if the army shoot me. Somehow I have to save my children I thought and brought them to Vavuniy on 2009 March 9thd and found refuge in Kamini camp. I cannot forget this incident in my life.