Reporting from Mannar for the Telegraph, David Blair met with families of the disappeared, who told of their distressing search for their loved ones, as Colombo gears up to host CHOGM in the coming weeks.
One mother, Uthayachandra Manuel, whose son was abducted said,
"Sometimes I think to myself, 'perhaps if they had killed my son, that may be better than me sitting here and wondering where he is'""If they had killed him, at least we could have done a religious ceremony and prayer and I would have thought to myself 'it's another death'. The pain of a missing child is not something that anyone can really understand."
The Telegraph went on to note that there were 5,676 "outstanding cases" of disappearances in Sri Lanka according to the UN – the highest number in the world besides Iraq.
Manuel went on to say,
"There is an army and a navy camp nearby and many checkpoints along the way... It's impossible that it could have happened without the soldiers at the posts knowing. From my perspective, it was the military who have done this.""I believe that my son is under the custody of the government."
Speaking to the TNA's Ananthi Sasitharan about the attack by uniformed men in the run up to the NPC elections, she said,
"They walked in asking for me. They said 'Where is Ananthi?'. If I was there they would've murdered me. In fact they wanted to murder me."
The Telegraph noted the high level of militarisation in the North, counting 51 military bases in the four days they were there, alongside propaganda posters by the Sri Lankan goverment. One of President Rajapaksa read,
"You are the sun and the stars and forever you will be the President. Live forever!"
Blair also talked to another mother, whose son is being kept under government custody, too scared to appear on camera or identify herself. She said,
"When I visit my so, he is often standing behind a metal gate so I can't see his body, only his face... For all I know he could be naked behind the gate and I would not know".
Manuel told of how she searched prisons across the island, receiving a letter saying her so was kept in the infamous southern Boosa prison. Once she made the 300 mile journey south, she was told her son was not there.
Her son was abducted 5 years ago. In an emotional plea to the government she said,
"The only request that we have for the government is if our children are alive, we just want to see them from afar".
"All we want is to see our children from a distance."
We need your support
Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.
Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view
We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.
For more ways to donate visit https://donate.tamilguardian.com.
