The struggle to go home in post war Sri Lanka: The story of Puthukudiruppu
Ruki-16
Aug, 2012
Groundviews
Rajini (pseudonym) was amongst the ten women we met in
a church in Vavuniya district about a week ago. At the time she and two of her
children were living in Kadirgama camp in Menik Farm. The women and their
families were displaced since 2008 and were prevented from going home to
Puthukudiruppu. Some of us had known this community for several years and their
yearning was always to go home to their villages despite the uncertainties about
the remains of their houses and property.
Rajini’s
husband was killed on April 17th 2009 during the last phase of the war between
the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Her
eldest son, now 23, was forcibly recruited by the LTTE in 2007. Two years later,
at the end of the war, he and other former LTTE combatants were detained by the
police and moved to the Boossa detention Centre in the Galle District. Rajini
has two more children aged 10 and 16 years.
At
the time of our previous meetings, the women shared with us their fond memories
of the village and looked forward to returning home to their own places in
Puthukudiruppu East and West in the Mullaitivu District. Ranjini and many others
had spent more than three years at Kadirgama and Anandakumarasamy camps in Menik
Farm. For Ranjini and the other women, their priority was to return home to a
secure place in order to build a better future for their children.
Almost
all the buildings in Puthukudiruppu were destroyed during the last phase of the
conflict. And even three years after the end of the war, many of the homes
remain in shambles. School buildings, hospitals and churches were also destroyed
by heavy artillery shelling. The displacement resulted in the abandonment of
private lands and in this three year period the residential areas had become
jungles.
It
is to these jungles that Rajini and her children came home to on August 10th 2012.
Along with Ranjini, about two hundred families returned to the jungles of
Puthukudirrupuu East from Menik Farm.
