Fleeing to safety

Escalating violence and the fear of war trigger another influx of refugees into Tamil Nadu.

AT first glance it is difficult to believe that Chandravadhani, 44, and her three daughters are Tamil refugees from Poonthottam near Vavuniya town in the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. Frontline met them on June 19 at the office of the Special Deputy Collector, Rehabilitation, Mantapam, Ramanathapuram district. They were seated in the passageway of the office on bamboo mats that refugees are given on arrival and there was an air of quiet dignity about them as they spoke.

Chandravadhani said her husband was killed by the Sri Lanka Army in his automobile garage in Vavuniya town on March 18 after a firefight between soldiers and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). She said her husband was not an LTTE militant. "It is impossible to live in Vavuniya with my three grown-up daughters. The situation there is extremely volatile," she added.

Chandravadhani went to Colombo with her daughters, applied for passports and visas to India, flew into Chennai, and took a bus to Madurai and onward to Mantapam, where they registered themselves as refugees. Soon they made their way into the sprawling camp carrying their bags, not knowing what to expect as they began their lives as refugees.

It is the start of another chapter in the 23-year history of the ebb and flow of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to Tamil Nadu. Between 2003 and 2005 around 15,000 refugees, including 5,444 assisted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), returned to their homes in Sri Lanka as the situation in the Tamil areas seemed to have stabilised following the ceasefire agreement of February 2002. On January 12, 2006, that trend was reversed with the arrival of a new batch of refugees.

The escalating violence in the Tamil areas and the fear of another war have led to the influx. The LTTE has targeted the Sri Lanka Army with claymore mines and the soldiers have retaliated with attacks on Tamil civilians. Other signs of a worsening situation have been the attempt on the life of the Sri Lanka Army chief, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseca, by an LTTE suicide bomber on April 25; the blasting of a bus by the LTTE with a claymore mine near Anuradhapura in North Central Province on June 15, killing 64 Sinhalese civilians; the reprisal bombing of Tamil civilian areas by the Sri Lanka Air Force; the Army raining shells and mortars and the starting of "round-ups" in Tamil villages by the Army; and the activities of Sinhalese vigilante groups.

Between January 12 and June 28, as many as 3,673 persons belonging to 1,155 families registered themselves as refugees in the Mantapam camp. Of them, 1,636 persons were those who had returned to Sri Lanka after the ceasefire agreement. The arrivals in May - 1,457 refugees - were the highest during this period.

If Chandravadhani and her daughters could afford to fly to Chennai to seek safety in Tamil Nadu, it was a perilous six-hour journey in a small boat at night for S. Rasalingam, his wife and two children from the coastal Pesalai village in Mannar district in northern Sri Lanka to Rameswaram and finally to Mantapam, about 15 km away. Rasalingam, who belongs to Palaiyutru in Trincomalee district in the Eastern province, worked as a plumber in a beach resort before fleeing to Tamil Nadu.

"There is no guarantee for our lives there. The Sri Lanka Army keeps firing multi-barrel shells from its camp in Trincomalee town towards Sambur [an LTTE-stronghold]. Forty shells can land at a time and destroy an entire locality. The noise of explosions forever fills the air. If you go to work, you are not sure whether you will return home alive. And when you are at work, you are worried whether your family members are safe at home," said Rasalingam.

After a tedious bus journey from Trincomalee to Vavuniya and onward to Mannar town, he and his family reached Pesalai. They stayed in an "open relief camp" set up by the Sri Lankan government but supervised by the UNHCR. On the night of June 5 they boarded a boat at Pesalai after paying the boatmen 10,000 Sri Lankan rupees for each family member, hoping to reach Rameswaram. But the Sri Lanka Navy detained them in mid-sea and sent them back to the camp, where they remained, poorer by Rs.40,000.

Later the family was moved to a dilapidated ice factory where "cows, goats and donkeys roamed and which stank of their dung". When explosions rocked the area, the family fled into the jungles and managed to reach the Mannar coast. They paid a boatman Rs.17,000 for the boat ride to Rameswaram and reached there on June 18 morning.

Rasalingam and his family were lucky to make it on that day. Only the previous day the Sri Lanka Navy had burnt 70 boats, including a mechanised trawler, and 20 fishwadis at Pesalai. More boats and fishing nets were set on fire in the neighbouring coastal villages of Vankalaipattu and Karisal. Forty-three boat engines were reduced to cinder. Two boatmen were burnt alive. The soldiers also threw grenades into the St. Mary's Victory Church at Pesalai, where internally displaced persons had taken refuge. Fifty-six persons were injured.

Refugees alleged that the Navy burnt the boats to prevent boatmen from ferrying them to Tamil Nadu. After the arson, there was no movement of refugees from Pesalai to Rameswaram on June 19 and 20. But the arrivals began again from June 21.

M. Logaraja from Kondavil in the Jaffna peninsula was a helper in the Agriculture Department before he and his family first came to Tamil Nadu as refugees in 1995 and lived in a camp near Gudiyatham. They returned to Kondavil in 2003 with the help of the UNHCR. He found that his homestead had been razed to the ground. "I saved enough money in the last three years and built a new home up to roof-level, but I am back at Mantapam as a refugee," Logaraja said. He reached Mantapam on June 18 and joined his family, whom he had sent three months earlier because "the situation was getting tight" in the Jaffna peninsula. "They were in touch with me through letters and hand phone [mobile phone]," he said.

On June 14, he took a bus to Mannar town and then reached Pesalai. The incident in which the LTTE blasted a passenger bus near Anuradhapura occurred the next day. In retaliation, the Sri Lanka Army went on the rampage at Mannar, he said. Shells rained at night. He fled into the nearby jungles where he stayed for three days. Finally, he made it to Mantapam on June 18 after paying a boatman Rs.8,000 to ferry him by "the main route through the deep sea".

Logaraja alleged that the Army took it out on Tamil civilians after the LTTE detonated claymore mines planted on roads and trees. "If you are walking alone on the road, the soldiers will seize the hand phone from you. If you dare question them, they will shoot you," he alleged.

Also in the Mantapam camp were Srilasri and Arputharani, who came earlier this year. They had first come in 1990. Srilasri went back in 1996 and Arputharani in 2004. Srilasri found that her house at Chettikulam in Vavuniya district had been demolished. "The Army had occupied our land also. We bought new land, put up a thatched hut and had started building a pucca house when we decided to flee to Tamil Nadu," she said.

Vijayalakshmi of Uyilankulam in Mannar district came in 1990 and has been staying at the camp at Vellore-Paramathi near Karur since then. Her son Azhagar, 35, returned to Uyilankulam in 2003 and informed her that the Army had occupied her land. Following the worsening of the situation in Mannar district, Azhagar returned to the Mantapam camp on June 14 and has been allotted a house too. Frontline met Vijayalakshmi at the Mantapam camp on June 19 when she had come to meet Azhagar.

It is at Mantapam that the refugees are registered first and given identification cards. They are either given accommodation at Mantapam or sent to any one of the other 102 camps, all of which are administered by the Tamil Nadu government.

The refugees blamed the Mahinda Rajapakse government for the worsening situation on the island. "The Army shot dead my husband in March 2006. It took place after Rajapakse was elected President in November," said Chandravadhani. "Whoever comes to power, they will not do anything for Tamils. Their policy is to wipe out Tamils. Only their names will differ," said Logaraja.

Although the escalating violence in the Tamil areas is the fundamental reason for the current arrival of refugees, there are allegations that the LTTE is driving them to Tamil Nadu. Another allegation is that the Army is forcing them to flee. But the refugees said neither was true. "The Army did not drive us out. "Podiyans' (boys, meaning Tigers) did not drive us out either. We came here because the Army constantly does round-ups," said Sivarasan of Sambaltivu near Trincomalee town. Said Srilasri: "Nobody asked us to get out. We came here after assessing the situation on the ground. We came here for our safety and security."