Now grown up: the Rwandan genocide orphans who found a bigger family

By Clement Uwiringiyimana-April 04, 2019

 SHALOM YOUTH VILLAGE, Rwanda (Reuters) - Vincent de Paul Ruhumuriza was born in Rwanda just a few months before genocide consigned his father to an unknown grave and traumatized his mother so badly she still screams and shakes at any mention of that time.

But, helped by a model of healing dating back to the Holocaust, the 25-year-old has finished his education and blended into a new family, where individuals grieving lost loved ones have rebuilt their lives by caring for each other.

"People should not be driven by the past," the bearded young man told Reuters this week, as the country prepared to mark a quarter of a century since Hutu militias killed around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. "I want to grow into someone who will benefit society."

Seven years ago, Ruhumuriza's life was on course to become another small tragedy in a nation where every family is touched by grief.

He and his mother lived in poverty. His father's death in the genocide was a mystery - the only time he ever tried to ask about it, his mother had a breakdown.

"Other people ... told how she was beaten, how she was tortured, got raped," he said. "She became like a mad person. She got traumatized."

THE PLACE WHERE TEARS ARE DRIED

Then, in 2014, just as Ruhumuriza was about to drop out, his school got in touch with the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, whose Hebrew-Kinyarwandan name translates as "the place where tears are dried".

The village was set up in 2008 by a South African-born lawyer, Anne Heyman, who had worked in the United States. Heyman and her husband raised more than $12 million to help care for families ripped apart by the genocide, taking their model from Israel's Youth Villages, which created new families for children whose parents had died in the Holocaust.

Rwanda's genocide, sparked by the assassination of the president, lasted around 100 days and stopped after rebels fought their way to the capital, led by Paul Kagame, Rwanda's current ruler.

More than 95,000 children were orphaned, the United Nations estimates, and around 300,000 children were killed. For some of the survivors, Heyman's village offered healing and purpose.

"Having 15 children around you can calling you Mama, and you helping them to conquer their past, that is a great contribution to the nation," said Emeritha Mukarusagara, a slender, bespectacled 57-year-old with long braids who became a foster mother after being widowed in the genocide.

She spent months hidden by a neighbor, heavily pregnant, terrified and filled with grief for her murdered husband. She keeps his picture on her phone but still cannot discuss his death.

Since then, she has fostered dozens of vulnerable children, including Ruhumuriza, who needed families.

NEW PURPOSE

A shy teenager, he arrived into a large, boisterous community where children live 15 to a house, watched over by a strict but loving foster parent they are all encouraged to call Mama. It was strange to call another woman Mama, he said. It was even stranger to have a brother. He liked it.

Ruhumuriza threw himself into his studies, becoming the school president, learning about Steve Jobs, and forming a deep bond with his foster mother. When he graduated and found a job in the construction industry, and a steady paycheck, he asked her what he should do with it.

Go home, she said. Build a house for the lonely woman who gave birth to you.

"Now my mother lives in the house I built," he said proudly. "Mama Emeritha is one of my cornerstones ... she is one of the best advisors I have."

Ruhumuriza is one of more 850 children who has passed through the village's 26 houses. But although the children of the genocide have grown up, many more come seeking refuge: those orphaned by accidents and disease. Refugees from Burundi. Children at risk of abuse.

Ruhumuriza, which was also the name of Mukarusagara's murdered husband, has a special place in his foster mother's heart.

"Every time I saw him, I remembered my dead husband. He was as kind as my husband," she said with a sigh.

"At his wedding party, I will put on the best attire I have and sit next to his mother."

(This version of the story corrects spelling of name in paragraph one)

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Syria’s Refugees Begin Their Journey Home

Thanks to a newly opened border crossing with Jordan, migrants are heading back to their country. But their ordeal is far from over.

Drivers wait in line at the Jaber-Nasib crossing between Jordan and Syria on Jan. 16. (Laith Joneidi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

BY MICAH SPANGLER

| APRIL 4, 2019, 12:46 PM

“Eighty-five meters,” the man in uniform said, pointing north along a small paved road leading away from us. “Syria is 85 meters that way.”

For almost anyone, the thought of walking less than the length of a football field and slipping into the epicenter of one of the world’s most tragic humanitarian crises would seem completely unimaginable. But for the few dozen Syrian families I met at Jordan’s Jaber Border Center on a sunny morning a few weeks ago, it was the chance they’ve been waiting for.

The families had made their way here from Jordan’s capital city, Amman, and from the Zaatari and Azraq refugee camps, where they’ve lived since the conflict in Syria sent them running for their lives. They are the lucky ones—survivors of a war that has killed over half a million people and, as of March 15, has raged for eight terrible years.

During those eight years, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), working with the U.S. and Jordanian governments, has helped keep hope alive for victims of this immeasurable tragedy. By providing shelter, medical care, food, cash assistance, and more, the U.N. and Amman have kept the Syrian refugees safe until the day they would be able to return home.
To an outsider, making the decision to return to Syria seems like an immensely difficult—maybe even impossible—choice. It’s a choice, however, that’s being left to the Syrians themselves, and some of them are ready to take their chances.

Just a few months ago, they wouldn’t have had the option, but in late 2018 Jordan announced that it was reopening a single border crossing with its war-torn neighbor to the north. After being shuttered since 2015, the reopening has allowed goods and people to once again flow between the two countries and, with them, the return of a small sense of normalcy to the once hectic port of entry.
Since the reopening of the crossing between Jordan and Syria, approximately 15,000 people have decided to take advantage of it.

Since the reopening, approximately 15,000 people, just a sliver of the 660,000 Syrian refugees registered by UNHCR in Jordan, have decided to take advantage of this overture and see what sort of life awaits them on the other side.

When I visited Jaber last month with the first U.S. delegation to tour the center since the border was reopened, I found a cautious optimism among the 100 or so people who had arrived to walk the final few steps left between them and a conflict that has forced roughly 5 million of their fellow countrymen to seek safety in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and beyond.

Inside the border center, a fleet of men politely lined up in front of a desk reserved just for them, clutching the UNHCR refugee paperwork that had come to define their lives. Outside, their families awaited their return in a trio of white buses.

The buses’ windows were filled with the faces of happy, smiling children, some speaking in small bits of English and others communicating via a translator. One boy, with red hair and a stripe of freckles across his cheeks, told me his name was Hamzeh and that he was 7 years old. Hamzeh fled Syria with his parents when he was just a toddler, maybe even younger.

As we chatted, Hamzeh’s seatmates left the bus and started exploring the open crossing. A young girl with long brown hair made her way down the steps, sporting a loose-fitting down jacket and lavender snow boots despite the bright, warm weather. “Hello, America!” she chirped as she walked around energetically, extending her hand to members of the delegation. “Hello, America!”

Behind us idled a small sedan loaded with what looked to be a full living room set. Furniture and blankets were stacked high enough to nearly double the car’s height.

Soon, the men came out from the border center and the U.S. delegation spoke with two of them. They expressed hope that life would finally go back to normal and repeatedly thanked the U.N. and Jordan for taking them in. As the soft-spoken men paused, reflecting on how close they were to completing a journey years in the making, an official offered them some extra words of confidence in Arabic.
With that, they all stepped back on the buses and the engines began to whir. A minute or two later, a UNHCR officer next to me looked at his phone. “Well… they’re in Syria,” he said, showing me the screen. “They just sent me this.”

It was a picture of the Syrian side of the border, a grainy shot of a government banner framing two small checkpoints. The image stuck with me even after he withdrew his phone. It was so close—just in front of us—but seemed a world away.

The life that awaits these former refugees and the returnees who will follow after them is far from certain. While the Syrian government is openly calling for its citizens to return, the roots of the conflict are far from resolved. And although the Islamic State has been defeated, it has certainly not been destroyed. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of Syrians who fled south will most likely remain in Jordan for the foreseeable future, unsure if the government’s proposals will lead to any meaningful reform and with very serious concerns about what, if any, economic opportunities are left for them in a country that’s been utterly shaken to its core.

For the first time in a long time, however, Hamzeh and his family marked the solemn anniversary of the start of the Syrian Civil War in their own country, a place to which they had never stopped wanting to return. It’s not an occasion that they will likely celebrate, but still, there is something to rejoice in. Right now, they are home. And it is possible that their eight-year nightmare is finally over.

Micah Spangler is the director of advocacy and humanitarian affairs at the United Nations Foundation.

India destroys its own satellite with a test missile, still says space is for peace



 
Bin Li-Lecturer, University of Newcastle-April 1, 2019 2.02am EDT

On March 27, India announced it had successfully conducted an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test, called “Mission Shakti”. After the United States, Russia and China, India is now the fourth country in the world to have demonstrated this capability.

The destroyed satellite was one of India’s own. But the test has caused concerns about the space debris generated, which potentially threatens the operation of functional satellites.

There are also political and legal implications. The test’s success may be a plus for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is now trying to win his second term in the upcoming election.

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Read more: India's WhatsApp election: political parties risk undermining democracy with technology

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But the test can be viewed as a loss for global security, as nations and regulatory bodies struggle to maintain a view of space as a neutral and conflict-free arena in the face of escalating technological capabilities.

According to the official press release, India destroyed its own satellite by using technology known as “kinetic kill”. This particular technology is usually termed as “hit-to-kill”.

A kinetic kill missile is not equipped with an explosive warhead. Simply put, what India did was to launch the missile, hit the target satellite and destroy it with energy purely generated by the high speed of the missile interceptor. This technology is only one of many with ASAT capabilities, and is the one used by China in its 2007 ASAT test.

Power and strength

Since the first satellite was launched in 1957 (the Soviet Union’s Sputnik), space has become – and will continue to be – a frontier where big powers enhance their presence by launching and operating their own satellites.

There are currently 1,957 satellites orbiting Earth. They provide crucial economic, civil and scientific benefits to the world, from generating income to a wide range of services such as navigation, communication, weather forecasts and disaster relief.

The tricky thing about satellites is that they can also be used for military and national security purposes, while still serving the civil end: one good example is GPS.

So it’s not surprising big powers are keen to develop their ASAT capabilities. The name of India’s test, Shakti, means “power, strength, capability” in Hindi.

Danger of space debris

A direct consequence of ASAT is that it creates space debris when the original satellite breaks apart. Space debris consists of pieces of non-functional spacecraft, and can vary in size from tiny paint flecks to an entire “dead” satellite. Space debris orbits from hundreds to thousands of kilometres above Earth.

The presence of space debris increases the likelihood of operational satellites being damaged.

Although India downplayed the potential for danger by arguing that its test was conducted in the lower atmosphere, this perhaps did not take into account the creation of pieces smaller than 5-10 cm in diameter.

In addition, given the potential self-sustaining nature of space debris, it’s possible the amount of space debris caused by India’s ASAT will actually increase due to the collision.

Aside from the quantity, the speed of space debris is another worrying factor. Space junk can travel at up to 10km per second in lower Earth orbit (where India intercepted its satellite), so even very small particles pose a realistic threat to space missions such as human spaceflight and robotic refuelling missions.

Regulatory catch-up

As we’re seeing clearly now in social media, when technology moves fast the law can struggle to keep up, and this leads to regulatory absence. This is also true of international space law.

Five fundamental global space treaties were created 35-52 years ago:

• Outer Space Treaty (1967) – governs the activities of the states in exploration and use of outer space
• Rescue Agreement (1968) – relates to the rescue and return of astronauts, and return of launched objects
• Liability Convention (1972) – governs damage caused by space objects
• Registration Convention (1967) – relates to registration of objects in space
• Moon Agreement (1984) – governs the activities of states on the Moon and other celestial bodies.

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Read more: I've Always Wondered: could someone take ownership of a planet or a moon?

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These were written when there were only a handful of spacefaring nations, and space technologies were not as sophisticated as they are now.

Although these treaties are binding legal documents, they leave many of today’s issues unregulated. For example, in terms of military space activities, the Outer Space Treaty only prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space, not conventional weapons (including ballistic missiles, like the one used by India in Mission Shakti).

In addition, the treaty endorses that outer space shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes. However, the issue is how to interpret the term “peaceful purposes”. India claimed, after its ASAT test:

we have always maintained that space must be used only for peaceful purposes.

When terms such as “peaceful” seem to be open to interpretation, it’s time to update laws and regulations that govern how we use space.

New approaches, soft laws

Several international efforts aim to address the issues posed by new scenarios in space, including the development of military space technologies.

For example, McGill University in Canada has led the MILAMOS project, with the hope of clarifying the fundamental rules applicable to the military use of outer space.

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Read more: We're drafting a legal guide to war in space. Hopefully we'll never need to use it

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A similar initiative, the Woomera Manual, has been undertaken by Adelaide Law School in Australia.

Though commendable, both projects will lead to publications of “soft laws”, which will have no legally binding force on governments.

The UN needs to work much harder to attend to space security issues – the Disarmament Commission and Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space can be encouraged to collaborate on the issues regarding space weapons.

It is in everyone’s best interests to keep space safe and peaceful.

The diets cutting one in five lives short every year

By James Gallagher-4 April 2019

The food we eat is putting 11 million of us into an early grave each year, an influential study shows.

The analysis, in the Lancet, found that our daily diet is a bigger killer than smoking and is now involved in one in five deaths around the world.

Salt - whether in bread, soy sauce or processed meals - shortened the highest number of lives.

Researchers say this study is not about obesity, but "poor quality" diets damaging hearts and causing cancer.

So which diets have got it in for me?

The Global Burden of Disease Study is the most authoritative assessment of how people are dying in every country in the world.

The latest analysis used estimates of countries' eating habits to pin down how often diet was shortening lives.

The dangerous diets were those containing:

1. Too much salt - three million deaths
2. Too few whole grains - three million deaths
3. Too little fruit - two million deaths

Low levels of nuts, seeds, vegetables, omega-3 from seafood and fibre were the other major killers.

"We find that diet is one of the dominant drivers of health around the world, it's really quite profound," Prof Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington told the BBC.

• The lifesaving food 90% aren’t eating enough of
• A bit of meat, a lot of veg - the flexitarian diet to feed 10bn
• Can a family learn to like the planetary health diet?

How is this killing people?

About 10 million out of the 11 million diet-related deaths were because of cardiovascular disease and that explains why salt is such a problem.

Too much salt raises blood pressure and that in turn raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Salt is popular with fish and chips

Salt can also have a direct effect on the heart and blood vessels, leading to heart failure when the organ does not work effectively.

Whole grains, fruit and vegetables have the opposite effect - they are "cardioprotective" and lower the risk of heart problems.

Cancers and type 2 diabetes made up the rest of the diet-related deaths.

How far is the world off a perfect diet?

No country is perfect and each favours some part of a healthy diet more than others, but this is how far the world is from an optimal diet.

Nuts and seeds again?

The healthy foods missing from the most diets around the world were nuts and seeds, according to the study.

Eager readers will have noticed they featured heavily in the planetary health diet, unveiled in January, to save lives, save the planet and feed 10 billion people.

So why don't we munch them?

Prof Nita Forouhi, from the University of Cambridge, said: "The perception is they are little packs of energy that will make you fat, whereas they are packed full of good fats.

"And most people don't see them as mainstream food; and the other issue is cost."

Nuts - they are not just for squirrels.

I thought meat and sugar were the bad guys?

The huge fat versus sugar debate and the link between red and processed meats with cancer have attracted huge headlines in recent years.

"These can be harmful as we show, but they are much smaller issues than low whole grains, fruit, nuts, seeds and vegetable intake," said Prof Murray.

Although, the study did show too many fizzy drinks were being drunk in every corner of the world.

The researchers say it is time for health campaigns to switch from talking about nutrients like fat and sugar and instead promote healthy foods.

But is a tasty unhealthy diet worth it?

Bad diets are knocking a couple of years off life expectancies around the world, according to the researchers.

But Prof Murray warns this is just the average and says the real question we should be asking is: "Am I going to die in my 50s from a heart attack? Or am I going to have some of the diet-related cancers in my 40s?"

Are any countries doing well?

Mediterranean countries, particularly France, Spain and Israel, have some of the lowest numbers of diet-related deaths in the world.

Countries in South East, Southern and Central Asia are at the opposite end of the spectrum.

• Israel has the lowest diet-related deaths - 89 per 100,000 people a year
• Uzbekistan has the highest diet-related deaths - 892 per 100,000 people a year

Japan and China have curiously contrasting fortunes that reflect their changing relationship with salt.

China consumes enormous amounts of salt with soy and other salty sauces being a key part of the country's cuisine.

But the rising popularity of processed foods is introducing yet more salt to their diet. It has the highest death rate because of salt of any country.

Prof Murray said: "Japan is very interesting because if you go back 30 to 40 years, they like China today had enormous salt intake.

"Salt is still their number one problem, but it has come down dramatically,

"And they have a diet that is higher in many of the things we think are protective for heart disease such as vegetables and fruit."

Soy sauce is high in salt

What about the UK?

The UK is behind countries like France, Denmark and Belgium.

The biggest problems are a lack of whole grains, fruit, vegetables and nuts and seeds.

The study estimates 14% of UK deaths are related to diet, with 127 diet-related deaths per 100,000 people a year.

Any advice?

Prof Murray said: "Diet quality matters no matter what weight you are.

"The really big story for people to act on is increase your whole grains, fruit, nuts, seeds and vegetable intake and reduce salt if you can."

But money is an issue.

It is estimated that having your five fruit and veg a day would take up 52% of household income in poorer countries.

But Prof Forouhi warns: "The public can make healthier choices if informed and have the resources, but if what is on the shelves as buy-one-get-one-free is always unhealthy, then that message will fall down.

"Cheaper options that are healthy are badly needed."

Both agreed there needed to be a shift from focusing on nutrients (fat/sugar/salt) and on to which actual foods people should eat.

Follow James on Twitter.

Navy Abduction case nearing completion: Victims’ families clamour for answers

Sailor involved in abduction of youth from Dehiwala, Wattala and transporting them from Colombo to Trinco confesses

CID tells Magistrate evidence confirms Karannagoda knew of abduction racket, detention and murder

“We’ve looked everywhere” sleuths tell families still begging them to find their sons

 

BY MANESHKA BORHAM-31 March, 2019

On Thursday when the magisterial inquiry into the abduction of eleven youth by a Navy abduction gang for ransom concluded for the day, parents of the missing boys waited near courts hoping to attract the attention of investigators led by OIC of the Gang Robberies Unit of the CID, IP Nishantha Silva. A decade after their children disappeared, and in spite of mounting evidence that they were murdered, this small group of women want to keep begging Silva and his team of investigators to do more to find their boys.

Earlier during the proceedings OIC Silva submitted an explosive revelation in his latest B report to Court on the gruesome navy abduction for ransom racket the CID has painstakingly uncovered, in an investigation that has spanned nearly a decade. With suspects going right up the chain of the Sri Lanka Navy command,implicatingthe current Chief of Defence Staff and the war-time Commander of the Navy, the case has generated wide public interest.

OIC Silva’s B report last week, revealed the CID’s latest breakthroughs in the high profile case of abduction and murder by Navy sailors.

The CID now has in its custody, a key suspect who not only helped the suspected ringleader of the abduction racket Lt. Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi alias Navy Sampth to abduct the young men from the suburbs of Colombo, and hold them illegally at the Pittu Bambuwa naval prison in Colombo, and then transport the boys to their last known location at the Gun Site within the Trincomalee Eastern Command.

The suspect has provided vital evidence to investigators, who have now firmly pieced together the two locations where the CID had always suspected that the youth had been held in illegal detention. The CID presented the statement made by Navy Sailor Dushantha Kottegoda to Court last Thursday.

In his statement to the CID, the suspect has also squarely laid the blame on Lt. Commander Sumith Ranasinghe, Lt. Commander Sampath Munasinghe and former Navy Spokesman, Commodore D.K.P Dassanayake. Munasinghe was aide-de-camp to the then Navy Commander Wasantha Karannagoda. Dassanayake and Ranasinghe were senior officers running a special naval intelligence unit, conducting surveillance operations.

The CID on the day also informed Magistrate Ranga Dissanayake that it has now been confirmed without doubt that former Commander of the Navy Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda knew where, when and how the youths were abducted and that he also knew of their eventual fate. As he concluded Silva said that after obtaining further statements from Karannagoda the progress of the investigations will be informed to Court in due course. Signalling the possible end of investigations, Silva also told Court they are now on the hunt for one final suspect. “He is only known to us by his alias but we are closing in on him” he told the Magistrate.

While a number of the Navy’s sailors and officers have stepped up to provide vital evidence, according to the CID, several members of the abduction gang have now admitted to and confirmed the forced abductions of the 11 youth which occurred between 2008 - 2009. The evidence also corroborates information provided by the abductees themselves to parents and relatives through phone calls during their illegal incarceration as well as by naval guards who were in charge of the youth, investigators said.

Naval Sailor Dushantha Kottegoda who claimed he transported the abducted men from the naval prison in Colombo to the Gun Site in Trinco, has revealed that since reporting to SLNS Parakrama in 2008 he was enlisted for special duties with the main suspect in the case, Lt. Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi better known by his alias Navy Sampath. Giving damning evidence, Kottegoda has since revealed information and owned up to the abductions of 10 of the 11 missing youth.

According to Kottegoda, he and Lt Commander Hettiarachchi and two others abducted John Reid, one of the 11 victims in Uswetakeiyawa, Wattala along with his van on August 9, 2008. Reid’s girlfriend who was with him at the time was left unharmed by the gang. Kottegoda in his statement claims the group drove Reid to the now infamous Pittu Bambuwa located within SLNS Parakrama.
Going on to prove that an abduction ring in fact existed, Kottegoda has also revealed that on his return from a holiday he found yet more people had been abducted by the group led by Navy Sampath. “I saw Amalan Lyon and Roshan Lyon at the Pittu Bambuwa. They were being questioned” he had told investigators. According to the CID, the father and son had been kidnapped by the gang on August 25, 2008 from the Ramanathan flats in Kotahena.

But what Kottegoda had to say next was perhaps no surprise to SarojiniNaganathan. During the few phone calls her son made to her between December 2008 - May 2009 from the Pittu Bambuwa having borrowed the phone from yet another of his abductors known by the alias Annachchi, Rajiv Naganathan had described the place he was being held at claiming he could see the Police Headquarters from the windows of rooms close to their cell. Visiting the site recently, the CID has been able to confirm that illegal detention cells were located at the site. “We discovered holes which we believe were held in place with iron bars such as that in a Police holding cell,” OIC of the Gang Robberies Unit IP Nishantha Silva told court. The CID says the youth were kept in 15 x 15 feet cells with views of the Police HQ as described by Naganathan to his mother.

“According to orders given by Lt. Commander Sampath Munasinghe, Hettiarachchi, several others and myself abducted the five youth from Dehiwala” Kottegoda confirmed to the CID sleuths. During his statement to the CID Kottegoda has also confirmed that it was the same group which had abducted the father of John Reid, Kasthuri Arachchige Anton. While confirming their activities were known by main suspects Lt. Commander Sampath Munasinghe and former Navy Spokesman Commodore D.K.P Dassanayake, Kottegoda has revealed that the abducted men were taken to Trincomalee on different occasions and handed over to yet another suspect in the case, Lt. Commander Sumith Ranasinghe.

The CID has also been able to confirm this evidence through further statements by more members of the group. According to Navy sailor S.S.K Somadasa, he was also enlisted with Hettiarachchi for special duties since 2008 at SLNS Parakrama and had seen John Reid at Pittu Bambuwa though he had not taken part in his abduction. Somadasa also confirmed he saw the five youth abducted from Dehiwala including Rajiv Naganathan at the same location. “They abducted them and brought them to the location, I was there,” he told the CID. He too confirmed the presence of the Lyons, Anton and Ali Anver at the while also claiming that in March 2009, Rajiv Naganathan and others were taken to the underground cells at the Gun Site located within the Trincomalee Eastern Naval Command.

Despite making no appearance in Court this week after successfully obtaining an order against his possible arrest, the recent statements by several key witnesses have however only further implicated former Navy Commander Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda. In their statements to investigators, they revealed his failure to take prompt action against the wrongdoers despite having the necessary information at hand.

Providing a statement to the CID, Karanangoda’s former Naval Assistant Rear Admiral (Rtd.) Udaya Keerthi Wijebandara has revealed that he personally informed Karannagoda of the abduction racket being carried out by a group of Naval officers including Karanangoda’s personal security officer at the time and suspect Lt. Commander Sampath Munasinghe. According to Wijebandara, it was Commodore Jagath Jayantha Ranasinghe, presently the Chancellor of the Kotelawala Defence University, who initially informed him of the racket after Ranasinghe was approached by Raman Prabhakaran, an uncle of Rajiv Naganathan.

“I then informed Intelligence Director A.K Guruge about the abduction,” he told the CID adding that thereafter he received information that the youth were being held at a Naval site close to the sea. According to Wijebandara, this information was conveyed to Karannagoda. “He (Karannagoda) called Sampath in and enquired, he then said it is Ranasinghe who is saying these, resolve this matter with him” Wijebandara recalled in his statement.

According to Wijebandara on a later date, Commodore Ranasinghe once again inquired about the five youth from Karannagoda over the phone. This prompted Karannagoda to make inquiries from the Head of the Eastern Command Admiral S.M.B Weerasekara who responded that no such individuals were being held at Gunsite. However, suspicious of Munasinghe’s behaviour, Wijebandara had tasked a Lieutenant to find more information about his activities. “I found information on illegal activities being conducted by Munasinghe and informed about them to Karannagoda” Wijebandara said.

However, at the time, Karannagoda had not paid attention, he claimed saying that however, it was only later that Karannagoda complained to the Police only after finding incriminating evidence in the room of Munasinghe.

But perhaps it was the evidence provided to the CID by former Naval Intelligence Director Rear Admiral A.K Guruge that was the most news for the parents of the youth. Sending Lt. Commander Krishan Welagedara to gather information on the abducted youth, Guruge told the CID that it was revealed the boys and their car was once at the Eastern Command but at the time of the inquiry, the missing persons nor the vehicle were on the premises. According to Guruge, the youth had been killed while in the custody of Ranasinghe.

For desperate families, trudging to the Fort Magistrate’s Court week after week, these reports of evidence about the fate of the boys read out by the investigators in court, mean nothing. All they really want the CID to do is to find their children. Sarojini Naganathan whose only child Rajiv went missing on September 19, 2009, rounded on IP Silva soon after the hearing last Thursday. “Has anyone said yet where the children are?” she demanded. “I have looked everywhere, Amma,” the burly official replied, trying to be as gentle as possible. “If they are still around, I would have found them.”

As Sarojini Naganathan broke down in tears, mothers of other abducted boys surrounded her. “I know the boys are being held somewhere,” the mother of Rajiv’s friend Dilan Jamaldeen told Silva defiantly, “please keep looking for them.”