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| Sunday, 24 February 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Behind the lines Frances Bulathsinghala takes a look at life in the harsh realm of the 'uncleared', LTTE-held Vanni in this two-part series.
When Murugesu Thevendam fled the gunfire in Jaffna in December 1995, the only possession he took with him to the Chavakachcheri Maha Vidyalaya refugee camp was the old coal iron with which he had succeeded to feed his five children for over twenty years. Today having restarted his laundry business in a small cadjan built laundry in Yogapuram in the Malawi region he earns over Rs. 150 if he is lucky and less than Rs. 75 if he is not. While wielding his ten kilo weighing iron over the clothes of those fortunate enough to have attire worth ironing in the war plagued Vanni district, Murugesu narrated to us the story of how he and his family struggled to survive, the day the gunfire rained down on them on 30 December 1995 when they fled Vattakotte, their hometown and took refuge in the nearest shelter - the camp for displaced people in Chavakachcheri. "We survived on the charity of our friends and relations, also displaced and living with us at the Chavakachcheri school but who had salvaged enough materialistic possessions and finances to provide us with sporadic assistance. One year later we came to the Vanni region with the other thousands of displaced people who left their camps to make new lives for themselves in the LTTE controlled area".
He continues: "It was with extreme difficulty that I managed to find eight hundred rupees to buy cadjan leaves to construct a makeshift 'laundry'. Even after I constructed the place I did not initially get any business at all for a long period as the area was flooded with displaced people who kept arriving from refugee camps in Jaffna and who barely had anything else other than the clothes on their body. " Any ironing I was lucky enough to get, I had to price very low." The entire Vanni area is a refugee camp. There is a population of just above four hundred thousand and all of them are categorized as internally displaced forced to move from area to area, along with the winds of war, says Murugesu. The highest numbers of internally displaced people within the Vanni region was from Mulativu and Kilinochchi and Madhu. "Today I am lucky to have got back on my feet again. I keep my laundry open from 7.00 am to 6.00 pm and on rare occasions if I cannot finish my allocated quota of work for that day, I extend the hours of work. Thanks to the fact that most of the displaced people, who have made the area their surrogate home, have got stabilized, I earn a sufficient amount of money. All my children go to the Yogapuram Maha Vidyalaya, the nearest school to the area that I live. My youngest daughter is in grade two and the eldest boy has just reached twenty. It is with a level of anticipation that we, as people who have suffered the brunt of the war look on at the peace process conducted at the top ", says Murugesu as he puts the last piece of charcoal and coconut shell into the iron, readying himself to labour over yet another round of clothes that will earn his and his family's daily bread. It is at the Sewalanka Foundation branch in Malawi unit that we met Sudha, an eight year old deaf and dumb boy - an orphan living at the Sewalanka branch in Malawi after he was found by a kindhearted officer of Malawi Sewalankam, begging near the Madhu church like a countless of other war orphaned children. This young friendless and parentless boy became our best pal over the two days spent at the Sewalanka awaiting LTTE clearance for us to proceed with the Sri Lanka Red Cross officials with whom we travelled from Colombo to their headquarters in Mulativu. Sudha warmed up to the attention that he was getting from the visitors. After several hours of trying to talk with gestures he came up to us with a dog-eared exercise book in which he had written several words and sentences in Tamil. All The words which were translated to us meant - 'mother', 'father', 'brother', 'sister', 'uncle' and 'aunt', relationships which he - a war orphan, who had been for as far as he could remember begging around the Madhu church, did not have the privilege of enjoying. After twenty four hours with us, this child, obviously starved for affection, could not be moved from the side of the Sri Lanka Red Cross Information Officer, Thushari Samarawickrema, with whom he began a long conversation in sign language and later exhausted by the most amount of affection that he probably would have got in his entire life, fell asleep at her knee. According to information provided by the LTTE political wing members there are over 30 orphanages in the Vanni region which house children whose parents have been killed due to the war. |
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