Denied even shade: Palaly families protest a fourth week under punishing sun

Residents of Valikamam North protested for a fourth consecutive week on Sunday, demanding the release of their land, which remains under the control of the Sri Lankan military.

The demonstration, held at Palaly Junction, saw protesters renew their call for the return of property they say they have been shut out of for the past 36 years, land the military continues to occupy and to work for its own agricultural and commercial ends while its owners live on, decade after decade, without their homes or fields.

When the demonstrators tried to put up a shelter at the protest site on Sunday, the police stopped them, leaving them to continue under a scorching sun as Jaffna endures the intense heat of mid-July.

Many of those gathered were elderly, yet the police maintained their refusal to allow even a temporary shade to be raised against the extreme temperatures.

The protest is part of a longer campaign by the displaced people of Valikamam North, who have also held weekly Friday demonstrations at Myliddy, outside the military commander's bungalow, for close to three months, demanding the release of hundreds of acres of privately owned land still held within the Palaly High Security Zone. They have vowed to keep protesting until their ancestral lands are returned.

The demonstrations have gained a fresh urgency after the deputy defence minister, Aruna Jayasekara, told parliament that land within the Palaly High Security Zone deemed essential to "national security" would not be returned to its Tamil owners at all.

A further 1,661 acres, he said, are to be permanently acquired for military infrastructure, with still more land sought to expand the Palaly airport, the very outcome the families gathering week after week at Palaly Junction, and in the heat, are protesting to prevent.