Paddithidalmassacre 26.04.1987
Paddithidal is a Tamil village and it is situated 10 Kms from Mutur in Trincomalee. The village is in the Mallikaithivu Assistant Government Agent division. From the beginning of 1987 there were military attacks in the area.
On 26.04.1987, there were clashes between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE near the Mallikaithivu junction. Three Sri Lankan military personnel were killed in this clash. Among these killed were Kanifa, a Muslim home guard. To take revenge for this the military entered the Paddithidal village and searched. People had already left the village suspecting that the military will attack the civilians if they face defeat at the hands of the LTTE. One Christian family of 16 members was praying as they continued to stay in the village.
The military opened fire at those praying. They burnt the people still struggling after the shooting. All 16 members of the family were killed. Three babies and several children were among those killed. One family member, Konan Ulaganatan escaped death.
“My name is Ulaganathan. I was born and I grew up in Paddiththidal. On Sunday 24th of April 1987, I went to church on my own. My family did not accompany me.
On the way back I saw that the families in the village were running and hiding. I tried to see if my family was amongst them. Thinking that perhaps my family had gone in another direction to hide, I decided that I would go home and check anyway. I heard bomb blasts. I was very scared of what might have happened.
I ran back to my house. I saw that my house was burning. As I was wondering where my family could have gone, I reached the front door step and saw that every single person in my family was dead. My wife, 2 daughters, big brother, his wife, his 5 kids, my wife’s big sister and 3 kids, my mother and my younger sister were all in there.
In desperation, I tried to kill myself in the fire – but the two people with me – grabbed me before I could. They took me away to the place in which they were hiding and kept me there.
I returned the next day and tried to make sense of how they had died. My youngest daughter looked like she had been eating rice at the time. She was leaning against the door with a bullet through her head. I was just able to work out that it was my youngest daughter because it was a very small face.
There was no one left in the village, they had all run away. I put all the bodies in a cart, and took them to a forest. I dug a big pit. I tipped over the cart and all the bodies fell into the pit. I covered them all up with sand.
My elder aunty, who had come to the village as a refugee, told me that she was with my family at the time. This is her account of what happened. She ran to warn them to hide and then ran away and hid in the banana trees in our house.
Before the army got there, they (my family) all took out their identity cards. The army did not even look at their identity cards. The army took their guns and shot everyone. She could hear people pleading to not be killed and then there was silence. The army set the house alight and left.
When she went back to house to see if anyone was even remotely alive, so that she could try and save any of them – they were all dead. Everyone had been shot or cut. As the house was burning, she did not stay there any longer than she had to”.
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