The Association of Relatives of Enforced Disappearances in the North and East have joined other organisations across the Tamil homeland in distributing Mullivaikkal Kanji to commemorate Tamil Genocide Week today.
See a statement from them, explaining why they distribute kanji - a porridge of rice and water - below.
MULLIVAIKKAL KANJI
May 12 to 18
It was the final few days of the genocidal war against the Tamil nation in 2009. The military encircled helpless, displaced persons from all sides to sow death upon their heads. Those sheltering in bunkers were ceaselessly bombed with shells and cluster munitions. In the homeland, the sorrowful grounds of Mullivaikkal was bathed in the warm blood flowing from dead bodies and the fatally wounded.
The people who were determined to secure national liberation were surrounded by starvation and death. Money had no value and there was no food to satisfy our hunger. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam join hands with the remaining welfare organizations to prepare the life-saving porridge, Mullivaikkal kanji, in an attempt to protect the last breath of those who had lived and harvested on the paddy fields in the Vanni. The only meal available to these people was a handful of rice cooked in water with a pinch of salt and only if they could find the latter.
Famished children, the elderly, and pregnant mothers languished in long lines. Thousands among those queueing for food perished from the endless assaults of shells and cluster bombs directed at them. Before women could wet their mouths with a sip of kanji to quell the hunger of the fetuses growing in their stomachs, they were ripped apart by these attacks. Their distorted vital organs and unborn babies have become deadly memories carved into our generation's hearts and minds.
Until the world listens to our people's resistance and distressed demands for justice, it is our historic duty to preserve Mullivaikkal kanji in our collective memory as a symbol of an immense and painful tragedy.
Mullivaikkal kanji marks a moment in the history of our people who were forced to rise up and fight for justice and for a life of dignity.
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