The Thonithattamadu Massacre
The Thonithattamadu Massacre
The land around Batticaloa is home to many villages rich in both marine and agricultural resources. Those who wished to become wealthy through hard work could easily have become millionaires in such fertile places. Yet the people who lived in these prosperous villages were not those who sought wealth at the expense of their humanity. They were people who preserved the dignity of their community, refusing to forget their cultural heritage, their compassion, and ultimately their sense of self.
The villages of Vakarai, Kathiraveli, Panichchankeni, Verugal, and Thonithattamadu, located within the Andankulam Assistant Government Agent Division, possessed abundant natural wealth. Although they had land and resources, the people worked only enough to sustain their daily lives, sharing what they had with others. It was rare to find among them people driven by greed, deceit, gambling, jealousy, trickery, or fraud.
The Panichchankeni River, which begins at the sea and stretches inland, separates Vakarai from the village of Thonithattamadu. People regularly travelled from Vakarai to Thonithattamadu for chena cultivation (slash-and-burn farming) and paddy cultivation. The village served as a seasonal settlement for agricultural work.
The Panichchankeni River, which flows through and around the village, was rich with prawns, crabs, and fish. Yet today people fear going there. To those hearing of it for the first time, this may sound strange. But the day when Sinhala military forces destroyed the village and burned innocent people alive in their field huts and farming shelters is not something that can easily be erased from memory.
It was a tragedy that befell people who wished only to live peacefully.
Who understands it? Who understood it then? Who brought it before the eyes of the world?
27 May 1987 was a dark day for Thonithattamadu.
It was on that day that villagers were caught in a wave of military violence and burned alive overnight. Whom could one ask about such a story today?
Only one or two elderly survivors, who had escaped by sheer fate, remained alive in Vakarai, struggling through the final years of their lives. I approached them, anxious that when they too passed away, there would be no one left to tell the story.
An elderly woman welcomed me into her tiny palm-leaf hut.
“Come in, son.”
The hut was so small that more than one person could hardly lie down or move around inside. She tried to spread two torn mats together for us to sit on.
Her husband had been killed in the massacre. Left alone, she struggled through life like a solitary tree standing against the wind. I listened to her sorrow.
“At around five in the morning we heard explosions near the river. We didn’t know whom they were destroying. We prayed that God would save us.”
She continued:
“Soldiers came in trucks from the military camps at Vakarai, Kathiraveli, Vammivettuvan, and Maavadi Odai. They got down near Vadichchal Pillaiyar Temple and marched on foot. They surrounded and captured everyone who had been guarding the paddy huts and cultivation shelters. Even those who had gone to pick jackfruit got trapped.”
“We heard gunfire everywhere. By daylight the sun had risen high. We heard that the soldiers had hacked, shot, burned, and charred people in Thonithattamadu. I ran there. What was there to see? Some had been hacked to death and half-burned. Others had been shot and burned. I found my husband. He was lying there as a blackened piece of charcoal. I brought him back and buried him here.”
“Those merciless people must be punished, son.”
Her anger and grief surged as she continued:
“As soon as they shot a man named Gunam, his wife ran carrying their two small children on her hips. They shot her too, then threw the children alive into the fire.”
“None of those responsible should be spared, son.”
The elderly woman was Veluppillai Mari Muthu.
I then went to hear the story of Dharmalingam Bhoomani, who had lost his mother, sisters, and his sisters’ children in the massacre.
His small hut stood beside the main road between Vakarai and Paalchchenai. There was hardly enough room inside to sit, so I sat on the ground outside.
He said:
“At dawn those sinners arrived. They surrounded the village and began shooting. I grabbed my children and ran, praying to God.”
“Thavamani’s children, Kamala, and Kamala’s children were trapped. They shot Kamala and threw her children alive into the flames.”
“Everyone was staying in the field huts. My elder brother Rathinaselan, his wife Pooppa, and their daughter were all shot.”
“Even a baby that was still nursing was shot and burned without mercy.”
“Because we ran as soon as the shooting started, my children and I survived. Only four people escaped like I did. Everyone else was killed.”
As he spoke, Bhoomani’s body trembled.
Even after fourteen years, he had not escaped the horror of what he had witnessed.
The cries of our relatives, who burned to death while screaming for help with no one to save them, were never truly understood by the world.
A Sinhala soldier who had come from elsewhere hunted down our people and shot them as they ran, like stray dogs. The murderous hunger of the military did not stop there.
As the saying goes:
“When there is no one to question wrongdoing, anything becomes possible.”
And so massacres continued across the Batticaloa region.
Victims of the Massacre
- Sokkalingam
- Veluppillai
- Ganeswaran
- Thangathurai
- Bhavanandam
- Rathinaselan
- Kamala
- Kannachi
- Pooppa Murugupillai
- Nadarajah
From Within the Silent Mass Grave
By Manalaaru Vijayan
Translation by Hari
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