Saththurukkondan massacre 09.09.1990
Saththurukondan is a village in Batticaloa district. Sathurukoddan is not very far from Batticaloa town. This village comprises Pannichaiaddy, Pillayarady and Oorani.
On the 10.09.1990, military arrested several people and took them to the military camp. Among those arrested were 85 women and many children. The arrested people were taken to the Sri Lanka army camp at the Saththurukondan.
There, the women were raped, and their breasts were cut off. 68 children, among them five babies were also tortured and murdered. 205 people were killed in this massacre.
Only one man, 21 year old Kanthasamy Krishnakumar escaped being killed and informed the others about what has happened.
At an inquiry into the massacre, the Officer in Charge of the camp, Captain Gamini Varnakula Sooriya said “On that day no search or arrest was conducted by us.” He also reiterated that none of his men even ventured out of the camp on the day of the massacre. The military also threatened and forced the President of Citizens Committee, Arunakirinathan, to sign an affidavit saying no such incident took place. Arunakirinathan resigned from his pots following this forced affidavit.
Mrs. SS lost 35 blood relations, almost her entire family. Her account of the massacre is as follows,
“On a Sunday evening, the army and the Muslim thugs rounded up our village and took thirty-five people including three handicapped teenagers. The Muslim thugs started assaulting the people.
On the previous day, some of our people knew that the army was going to round up Pannichaiaddy and Pillayarady. In order to escape from this round up, many people went to Kuddyeruppu. Then the soldiers took 10 people from Kuddyeruppu.
They brought everyone near Pillayarady. There were about 185 people. They took everyone to a covered area in Vincent Depot. Then we couldn’t see anything. But we heard people shouting and screaming with firing in between. After a few minutes we saw the flames blazing. Bodies were burning till the morning. They had shot and hacked 184 people to death. Those who were taken on a pretext that they would be released after an inquiry were in flames.
For a few days, no-one was allowed to go near the depot. After a week, we went to the army camp and enquired about the whereabouts of the members of our family. They said that they never came to our village and they never took anyone. What else can we do other than ask the army? There is no guarantee that this will not happen again. So I decided to move to Karadianaru for my safety.
There is only one survivor – Kanthasamy Krishnakumar. He saw everyone being cut with big knives and thrown into the fire. When he was cut with a knife by a soldier, he fell down and pretended to have died. But before he was thrown into the fire, he got up and ran away. They couldn’t catch him.”
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