This is the pathetic story of Mrs Kunalingam Jeyaruby. She states how her family got devastated, when her parents got killed in a bomb attack.

“We are from Chavakachchceri. With the intention of doing cultivation our father decided to move to Kandavalai Velikandal in the mid 1980s. My father was doing very well. We are 6 siblings; I am the third in the family. I and the three younger than me were born in Kandavalai. My eldest brother who was in the LTTE became a Martyr and my other elder sister too is in the LTTE cadre.

On 23.03.1998 all I went to our aunt’s house while the rest went to school. Our parents were at home. A KFir that came at 7.45 a.m. bombed our house. When I ran home I saw my father’s body on the road and my mother was profusely bleeding and panting for breath. I didn’t know what to do but cried loudly. My mother opened her eyes and looked at me once and her eyes closed again. I knew that she too had left us. I couldn’t bear it and fainted immediately. I loved her so much. They too loved us immensely. To pay back their love I toiled very hard all alone to educate and bring up the ones younger than me.

All four of us stayed with aunty for four months. The LTTE gave us a small plot of land, which had a few coconut palms in Vaddakachchi. We survived on the sale of the coconuts and the thatches I wove from the coconut leaves. I was only 16 then. Though I was in the 10th class yet I gave up schooling to look after the younger ones, earn a living and maintain the house. My brothers studied only up to the O-Level and started working. I got married but I am keeping my sister Jeyagowri with me. She is now employed as a sales girl in a boutique near by.

If only our parents have lived all of us would have got a sound education and led a prosperous life. One cussed bomb destroyed our lives. For the pilot it was only a pressing of a button but it devastated the lives of all of us.

This episode is narrated by the wife of Arumugam Sivarasalingam, who got killed, while going by boat to Jaffna via Kilaly when the army shelled from E’Pass.:

Mrs.Sivarasalingam

We are originally from Theevakam (Islands) but domiciled at Skanthapuram in the Kilinochchi district. We got married in 1978 and we have 5 children – one girl and four boys. My husband was running a small mill and survived with that meager income. Skandapuram is a remote village that is sparsely populated. Since the mill was fairly old, it broke down frequently. He tried to do paddy cultivation but incurred heavy losses. So the mill was repaired and run again. When it broke down again the necessary parts were not available in Vanni. The E’Pass route was also closed by the army. Hence he decided to go to Jaffna via Kilaly and that was very risky as it was subject to shelling by the army from the E’Pass camp. I was against his taking that perilous route as I preferred to starve and stay alive as long as possible. But he wouldn’t listen as he cared for all of us. Finally I agreed.

He along with three others hired a boat and left on 06.12.1992. He promised to return on the 09th. But he never did. I reported this to ICRC in Kilinochchi and several others. I didn’t have money for the bus fare either to travel frequently to Kilinochchi. I kept asking all those I met on the road as to whether they had seen my husband. A neighbour told me one day that there was a rumour that a helicopter was heard shooting around the day my husband left. I borrowed some money for the bus fare and went to the ICRC and they confirmed that there was a shooting on the 6th of December. But I hoped my husband was safe in Jaffna searching for the spares for the mill. The friends of my husband went to Kilaly by a tractor after 14 days and found the body of my husband washed ashore. It was in a decomposed state. I felt like committing suicide. There is no life for me without him I thought. But the thought of our five children prevented me from doing anything rash.

Our eldest son was only 11 then reading in the seventh standard and the youngest was 04 attending a preschool. I rented the mill to a friend of my husband. He gave us something just sufficient enough for us to exist. But I was thankful to him as I was aware that the mill was not a money spinner. When our son completed his O.Level examination, he took over the mill. All our children have completed their O.Level except the youngest, who is still at school. The only consolation is I managed to give my children some education at least. None of them are married.

Dowry System:

The boys do not want to get married before their sister, who is 27, is settled. With no savings to give as dowry I wonder when I can get her married. The dowry system is a curse in our society. I hate it. I will not allow any of my sons to accept any dowry.

All the children were unanimous in saying gratefully, that they all are highly indebted to their mother for having strived so hard undergoing untold miseries in bringing them up.

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Kanapathipillay Sureskar was a carpenter from Klinochchi. He had to move with his wife Kamalawathy to Vannerikulam in 1996, when the army moved into Kilinochchi.

Kamalawathy’s parents and her siblings also joined them. But neither Sureskar nor her father was able to find any employment in Vannerikulam. Hence they all moved to Vavuniya. They were kept in a refugee camp in Vavuniya. It was while they were there the army took away Sureskar for “questioning” and he never returned.

His wife Kamalawathy states:

“We got married on 23.06.1995 and I was 19 years old. We lived with our parents in Kilinochchi. My husband and my father were employed and we lived fairly satisfactorily. I was expecting when we got displaced first to Vannerikulam and then to Vavuniya. I gave birth to our daughter Rishanthi when we were at Vannerikulam. But my father and my husband could not find any work there. Hence we had to leave for Vavuniya. While we were at the refugee camp in Vavuniya the intelligence unit of the army dragged my husband away on 06.06.1997. I fell at their feet and begged them to leave him behind as he was an innocent person. But it proved futile. We thought he would be released soon.

But he never turned up. My complaints to the ICRC did not bear any fruits either. I did not dare to go to the army camp fearing that I too may get arrested and my daughter would have then lost both her parents. My younger brother, who was only 15 attended school and went to the nearby building site and carried cement buckets and brought home Rs.50.00 or Rs.100.00. This supplemented what my aged father was able to earn.

We wanted to come back to Kilinochchi as early as possible but we had to wait five years until the peace was made in 2002. When we reached Kilinochchi we went to see our house. It was completely destroyed. We could not find even the pots and pans. Luckily we brought some utensils from Vavuniya. It proved handy. My father borrowed some money and with the help of my brother they put up a temporary shed for us to live in. Until then we cooked and lived under a tree. Since my brother had to go for work, he could not attend school. He sacrificed his future for us.

My father and my brother have opened a carpentry workshop. By the grace of God we get a steady income now. Our younger sister is also married and settled.

Since I did not want to be too much of a burden to my parents I put Rishanthy in an orphanage for girls in Uduvil. But my brother brought her back as he did not want to leave her in an orphanage. Now Rishanthy is grown up. Whenever she inquires about her father it hurts me very deeply. How can I tell her as to what happened? She is too young to understand that such an inhuman atrocity was committed to her father for no fault of his. I think I will have to live with that pain for the rest of my life.”

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People from Pallai had to vacate the area due to the shelling by the army in 1996. Perampalam Nageswaran too had to leave their house and the coconut plantation in their compound. He moved with his wife and the three daughters of theirs to Vaddakachchi. The eldest child was four years old and the youngest was only one year old. They constructed a hut in the compound of a known person and lived there. Nageswaran who was a vegetable vendor while he was in Pallai continued the same profession from Vaddakkachchi also. He did manual work as well whenever he got the chance. They managed to lead a satisfactory life with his earnings. It was in 1996 that the army started moving into Kilinochchi. There was heavy shelling all the time. On one of these days that Nageswaran went missing.

His Wife Ratneswary States:

My husband and my uncle went to see the Village Officer near D-3 at Govinthan Kade junction. But they never returned thereafter. Those who went along with them stated that they saw the two being taken away by the army. I went to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and made a complaint. A few days later they informed me that they were unable to trace my husband and my uncle as they were not kept in the Negombo or E’Pass prisons, which they had checked. They assumed that the two must have been killed.

I was flabbergasted. I did not know what I was going to do with the three girls of ours who were so small. Because of their tender age I could not leave them alone at home and go in search of work. Luckily my father was with us. He went to the Kilinochchi market and worked as coolie at his old age. It hurt me to see him thoroughly exhausted when he returned walking in the late evenings. He walked that ten kilometres daily in order to save the bus fare. But he did not live long. When he expired I had to leave the young ones under the care of the eldest daughter and went for work. There was no permanent work for me either and I couldn’t venture far out in search of new jobs leaving the little ones behind alone at home. Hence the meager earnings of mine kept us starving frequently.

But when peace came into force in 2002 we returned to our house in Pallai and edged a frugal living from the coconuts palms that are in our compound. I sent two of my children to an orphanage as the income from the coconuts are not sufficient to feed all of us.

Now I miss not only my husband but also my two daughters.