Adampan massacre 12.10.1986
Adampan village is situated in the Manthai West Assistant Government Agent Division in Mannar district. This is a farming village. The villagers have suffered endless atrocities at the hands of the nearby Thalladi Sri Lankan military camp for more than 20 years.
On 12.10.1986 at 4.00 am in the
morning, the Sri Lankan military moved out from the camp through the Malikai village and rounded up the Adampan village. They shot and killed the sleeping villagers and burnt down several shops. The military that entered the village at 5.00am continued the attack until 11.00am. The military threw the bodies into the rice fields and on the road and left. More
than 20 civilian lost their lives and many shops were brunt down.
Suvannah Sabastianpillai’s account of the event is as follows,
“I was sleeping at home and heard blasting noises around 4am. We woke up to see what had happened. There was a helicopter in the air. We started running and were surrounded by bomb blasts. We ran to a nearby Muslim village.
We returned around 12 pm. We hid in a tree and saw that the army were everywhere along with blasting sounds. The army had rounded up the whole place. Things were broken,
people were crying. Everything was a mess. There were jeeps everywhere. Close behind a jeep were the Special Task Force. We heard rapid fire near where they had stopped. 22 vehicles had come to Thamarakulam. I counted them. Police and the SLA joined in on this. Two of my relations – Pasumai and Cheenan – were on their way back from a funeral. They were shot and left on the road.
he army left around 3pm and we came back to find wounded bodies and blood everywhere. I can’t describe the situation. 11 people had died. I saw all of this with my own eyes.
They took boys from this village away to where the land mines were and hurt them. We were tortured like this in ’94, ’95 and ’96. When they came to shell, we would just leave everything and run. They would come at any time of the day – morning, evening and night.”
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