CMP/MN/MW/VID/02
I was born and brought up in a village called Periyamadu in Mannar district. I studied up to O/L there. My husband is also from Periyamadu, ours was a love marriage. In the year 1998 there was a riot, LTTE and TELO had a dispute, and my husband’s brother supported TELO. My elder brother was also supporting TELO, therefore they took him away and shot him. They started looking for my brother-in-law. He went on hiding. Due to all these issues, they have decided we shouldn’t be staying here and sent us away to Vidaththal Theevu village. They didn’t let us even to do the burial. They sent us away without giving us time to prepare or take anything. We requested them to let us do the burial, but they said “you cannot do that, you get out, you don’t have the rights”.
With that, we came here to Vidaththal Theevu, in December, 1998. I was pregnant then with my third child. I gave birth after 18 days of coming here. Since it was not our village we faced so many difficulties. I was facing economic hardships even when i got married, after coming here also we suffered. I was in agony and was crying thinking when we would be able to go to our village. Later with the help of the people from this village we got progressed a bit. In addition to fishing we were also running a small shop here. When people started to go to India, we opened a small tea shop. From that income we brought up our children, educated them. Through our own efforts we were progressing in life.
When things were like that, later problems between LTTE and military began. Since our house was built in the sea shore, it got damaged several times due to this trouble. We faced bomber attacks. They might have assumed that the tea shop would be often visited (by LTTE), so it would be destroyed, and then we would rebuild, again it would get destroyed, it went like that. Several times we changed places.
They took one of my sons to the Movement, under the policy of ‘one person from each family’. I had only one son and three daughters. He was in the Movement for 6 years, he went there when he was 15 and later they brought him to us as a dead body, when he was 27. Till then they didn’t show him to us. Once he escaped and came to us since he didn’t like it over there. They again forcefully took him away.
After that we faced a huge displacement. After that displacement took place we lost our livelihood, our financial condition got worst. When we move from place to place we were not able to do any work. Having the daughters with us, it’s not possible to do any kind of work. There were shell attacks at each place we get landed. It’s not possible to buy things at shops, cannot do any job. My husband was lame in his leg, he could only do small jobs. Cannot go to sea, cannot even do small jobs. Some organisations gave us some things, pots and pans. They gave us cloths. But how many places we could carry those things with us? One day we would put up a hut and stay, the next day there would be shell attacks. What could we take with us? - the things or the children? We would take few things here and there and run away. Initially we had vehicles - auto, motorbike, so we were able to take some things carefully. But at the later stages we were not able to take anything, can’t even run. Finally from a place called Vattuvaayil, we held our children’s hands and ran away without taking anything with us. That’s how we were able to come to this side without any harm to my children or husband.
First we were at Iluppakadavai. Within a month we got displaced from there and went to Thevanpitty. Later to Tharmapuram, Vellangkulam, Vanni like that we would stay one day at a place and then run away from there. Likewise we went to so many places, went through so much difficulty and reached Vavuniya, empty handed – without a thing with us. Finally we went inside the military controlled area.
Later they brought us to this village. But the army was occupying my house. They have taken over the sea side lands and put up camps there. Since we didn’t have a place to stay and I was already in hardship I borrowed some money from one of my brother, bought this land and stayed in the house we made. After the Indian Housing Scheme was introduced, they have built this house for me.
When we were with the Movement, all our earnings went for taxes. Now we are stuck with our debt issues. In future we should be peaceful without any debt issue. Since there are no troubles now we are able to have a peaceful sleep. It was not like that before; when a Kibir plane comes while we were eating we would leave the plate and run. When we come back, the food would be eaten by a dog or a cat. People would take – cannot lock the drawers and the money. Whether it’s a Kibir or a bomber plane it would always attack the seashores. Since we were living in the seashores our legs were all wounded by the running we did. We would runaway hearing even a small sound.
Eldest daughter was educated and married. She got teaching appointment. The other one did A/L and does Sinhalese, English, and Computer etc. She is facing the challenge of unemployment. I got married off my third daughter last month; second daughter is not married yet.