More than a decade after the end of the armed conflict, the Sri Lankan military continues to occupy vast swathes of land reports Reuters, as it spoke to Tamils on the island and abroad who are attempting to reclaim their land.

Reuters spoke to 44-year-old Raj, a Tamil who travelled from Australia to his village of Kurumbasiddy, which since 1990 has been occupied by the Sri Lankan army. Along with 100 other families, the area they were living was declared a High Security Zone and remains under the reigns of the military more than 3 decades later.

“I still hope that one day we would be able to take the little ones to our ancestral home to play hide and seek along the balconies and staircases, to run around the mango trees, and to celebrate the Thai Pongal (harvest festival) in our portico,” said Raj.

75-year old Sellathurai Sivapatham, whose land in Kurumbasiddy also remains occupied by the military had tried to take legal action against the government. “I really want to get my house back this time,” he told Reuters. “But when I went to the lawyer, he laughed and said it was impossible to sue.”

Sri Lankan government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said “it is not a question of releasing land”. “It is a question of not compromising national security,” he told Reuters. “We are not ready to give any lapses in national security.”

Military spokesman Brigadier Chandana Wickremesinghe said that the military remained stationed in the North-East and continued to occupy land for “tactical moves and national security”.

See more from Reuters, including comments from other Tamils still struggling to reclaim their land, here.