A painful displacement
A painful displacement
After the peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) broke down, the military launched a war with the aim of capturing the entire Yarlpanam from military bases such as Palaly and Kankesanthurai, where the army was stationed. Air strikes, shelling and gunfire were carried out everywhere.
The people of Yarlpanam experienced a massive displacement that no other ethnic group had ever experienced in world history. This massive displacement took place on October 30, 1995. The reason for this was the then Sri Lankan President Chandrika’s ‘Sun Ray’ military operation. This Sun Ray operation was launched on October 17, 1995.
When dawn broke on October 30, 1995, it was a normal day. Although many people knew that the army was in a strong position on the front lines, no one could predict the strength of the LTTE. Even today, people talk about the fighting in the Puttur areas. That was a time when there was no electricity.
At 8 pm, the army was about to capture Yarlpanam and carry out a massive genocide operation. The LTTE announced on loudspeakers that the people should immediately move to the safe areas of Thenmaradchi and Vadamaradchi and Vanni areas.
The approximate population of the Yarlpanam peninsula at that time was 500,000. It is impossible to imagine that 500,000 people would have to pass through just two roads that connected the peninsula to the rest of the north before dawn.
But the people did not have time for all that. Everyone tied their bags and went out onto the streets. The streets were packed.
But the LTTE had made this decision in a crisis without any prior decision, and the LTTE troops who had migrated with the people, and the wounded fighters who were receiving treatment in hospitals, were proof of this.
That night carried a huge human tragedy. Those who were broken, wondering whether they would ever return home, those who did not know where to go, those who had left their elderly parents at home, pregnant women in their late teens, and those carrying elderly people took an hour to take a step on the street.
Those who carried umbrellas to water children crying for water, those who drank water from buckets hanging from the radiators of lorries, those who dug holes in the swampy ground to bury the elderly who had died on the street – the world saw only ‘Ugh’.
The planes that took to the sky the next morning made the situation even more tense. Wherever the bomb was dropped near that road, thousands of people were in a state of fear of being killed. They had to walk for more than 24 hours. People, without a place to walk or sleep, threw their lives away in the most visible places like temples, churches, bus stands.
What would be the pain of being displaced from the land they had lived in for ages in a single day?
Through Operation Suryakathir, the troops captured Yarlpanam city and the entire peninsula from the LTTE. Operation Suryakathir ended in December after completely capturing Yarlpanam.
With the brutal war of 1995, Operation Suryakathir, Yarlpanam was seriously wounded by the war. Unhealed wounds and destruction continue to occur to this day. Tamils still yearn for freedom.
(Translation by Tamilpriya)
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