The
Broken Survivors of Sri Lanka's Civil War
Frances Harrison: BBC News, 10 October 2012
The Sri Lankan civil war - which claimed 100,000 lives -
ended in 2009 when government forces finally crushed a near-40-year-long
insurgency by the Tamil Tiger rebel group. The final months were especially
brutal and survivors will not easily forget what happened to them.
It was not hard to spot her. The house on the outskirts of
Dublin, Ireland, was full of plump Sri Lankan Tamils, joking loudly and
overloading the table with dishes of steaming biryani for Sunday lunch. In the corner, reluctant to come forward,
stood a skeletal gaunt-faced woman with dark circles under her eyes, a tell-tale
sign of sleepless nights. When her brother stood next to her it was impossible
to see any family resemblance because she was so physically different after
months of starvation and trauma. She looked like the figure in Edvard Munch's
famous Scream picture come to life.
I call her Sharmila but that is not her real name. Nobody
who escapes Sri Lanka wants to be identified when they tell their stories for
fear of what might happen to their extended families back home. Sharmila more
so than others because she left behind a husband and two children.
A farmer's wife inside rebel-held areas of northern Sri
Lanka, Sharmila was one of hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians caught up
in the final phase of the war as the government crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels
once and for all. A UN investigation said it was possible up to 40,000 people
were killed in those five months alone. Others suggest the number of deaths
could be even higher.
As European tourists sunned themselves on Sri Lanka's
southern beaches in 2009, at the other end of the island Sharmila was cowering
on a squalid overcrowded beach as scores of rockets from multi-barrelled
launchers pummelled the area. Doctors were forced to amputate children's legs
without anaesthetic, using butchers' knives in a series of makeshift hospitals
that repeatedly came under direct fire. Human rights' groups counted 35 attacks
on hospitals in those months - too many to be purely accidental.
It is a story of atrocities that was not fully told at the
time - journalists and aid workers were barred from the war zone. Three years
on, most of the Sinhalese - the majority of Sri Lankans - simply choose not to
ask what their troops did in the name of victory. The government still denies
accusations that it committed war crimes.
Sharmila though cannot forget how she used a shovel to
collect up the body parts of her neighbours, blown to pieces by shells. She is
haunted by all the people she saw die: a man as he took his son to the toilet,
two small children nearby, hundreds queuing under a tree for food. Her own
daughter narrowly missed being hit by a shell and a bullet whizzed past her
cheek when she went to a Hindu temple to pray that if they were going to die,
it would at least be all together, rather than one by one.
If the indiscriminate shelling by the government was not
enough, there was the added threat of the rebels who needed cannon fodder. Sharmila's
daughter was 14 years old and at risk of being snatched. It had long been
compulsory for every family to give one child to the rebels to fight. As the
war drew to a close they returned for the others. It happened to Sharmila's
sister as they camped on the beach. Her first son died fighting so the rebels
came for the second, then the third, only 16 years old. "Kill us first, we
have already given you two children," screamed Sharmila's sister, but the
Tigers just pushed her aside and snatched the boy. That was the last they ever
saw of him.
Years later Sharmila is still a shattered woman. As she told
her story in Dublin, she twisted her sweating palms in anguish and her chair
started wobbling. Then I noticed the curtain behind her was quivering too - her
whole body physically trembling so much with the effort of remembering that it
made everything around her vibrate. I have never seen a person so literally
shaken by what they had experienced, many months after the event. Sharmila is
typical of the survivors I have interviewed, many of whom are now suicidal,
broken people coming forward to tell their stories for the first time. A brave
doctor who served in the makeshift clinics saving thousands of lives can no
longer stand the sight of blood. Aphotographer cannot look through a camera
lens without seeing dead children. And a Catholic nun struggled to keep her
faith in a loving God after everything she had seen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-19843977