In the 39 years since the pogroms of Black July, few images exist of the horrific violence that was unleashed on Tamils by Sinhala and Sri Lankan government backed mobs.
The photographs that do still survive are vivid.
Using the genealogy platform MyHeritage, we have enhanced and colourised some of the few photographs that have lasted. They offer a stunning new glimpse into the horrors of the pogrom.
'Naked and bloodied, the exhausted youth slumps on a bench by the filthy roadside, his head in hands, awaiting the final blows.
His casually dressed pursuers gather round. One be-spectacled young man grins as he raises his right knee in preparation for another blow.
This single image, above all others, has come to represent the traumatic events of ‘Black July’ 1983 for Sri Lanka’s Tamils.
Find out more about this iconic photograph here.
