Jaffna refugees give up hope of ever returning
IF you go to Jaffna, you will cry. That is what refugees who fled aerial bombing by the Sri Lankan military and brutal attacks by Tamil rebels in Jaffna city over the past two weeks said yesterday.
They could never return to their homes in the Tamil separatist stronghold on the Jaffna peninsula.
'If the Government takes over Jaffna we do not trust them: if the Tigers stay, they will kill us or harm us,' said Balasanga Shanmugnathan.
He escaped from Jaffna by boat across Jaffna lagoon, then walked more than 100 kilometres with his two daughters, wife and sister, sleeping by the side of the road at night.
The family arrived in Vavuniya six days ago with no money, no food and only the clothes they were wearing.
Since then, the local Young Men's Hindu Association has given them permission to sleep on the floor of its hall.
Mr Shanmugnathan and his family are among hundreds of thousands of people displaced by heavy fighting in northern Sri Lanka since mid-October, creating the biggest movement of refugees in the world at this time.
'Now I must look for work. In Jaffna I was sometimes a farmer. I hope I can work here as a farmer also,' he said.
His wife Annaranna described atrocities perpetrated against civilians by the Tigers.
'As we were leaving to go south, we saw Tigers clubbing people with pieces of wood and sometimes their rifles. Many of the people were old,' she said.
But the violence has not only been initiated by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Government forces that have saturated Jaffna Peninsula in the biggest assault launched on the Tiger stronghold have also been accused of bombing civilians.
Other refugees in this frontier town witnessed waves of aerial attacks on Jaffna in which bombs rained on civilian homes.
They say very few civilians remain in Jaffna city.
The Sri Lankan Army yesterday continued to reinforce its soldiers massed at the gates of Jaffna ahead of a final push to take the city.
A senior military commander said many people had fled Jaffna because the Tigers had told them the Army would use nerve gas in the area.
Vavuniya is the nearest northern town fully under government control. Two kilometres north is a military checkpoint where soldiers refuse access to all non-military or non-government approved traffic.
Yesterday, 10 busloads of people headed north across the checkpoint to rejoin their families carrying supplies of food, which has run scarce in many areas.
Strict controls are maintained on what goes through. Fuel, batteries and compasses are the main items seized from people heading north.
