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Help us, imprisoned Tamils implore from camp
The Times - May 26, 2009
Catherine Philp – "We are in an open jail," Kumar whispers, his skinny shoulders shaking as he looks around to check who is watching. "Help us, we want to be free."
He is one of the 220,000 Tamil civilians being held against their will behind the razor-wire coils that surround Manik Farm, the largest displacement camp in Sri Lanka and one of the largest in the world.
Camp is not the word its inmates use for it. A prison and a concentration camp were two of the descriptions made to outsiders on a rare visit to the camp on the sidelines of the visit by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Squalor is less the defining feature of Manik Farm than militarism. The presence of armed soldiers around the camp and its perimeter is overwhelming. New armoured patrol vehicles sit at the entrance to the side of a sandbagged bunker.
The entire camp is surrounded by 2m-high wooden posts, strung with barbed wire and wreathed with coils of razor wire. From the air, the nearby site of the final battle reveals itself one clue at a time – the scorched patches of earth, blasted palm trees, burnt-out skeletal houses.
Then the helicopter banks sharp right over the green lagoon and a blaze of white sand appears, to the gasps of the first outsiders to glimpse the beach where the Tamil Tigers made their last stand.
Sri Lanka's "no-fire zone", where Father Amalraj, a Catholic priest, and his parishioners fled and were trapped, is a scene of such utter devastation that it mocks its very name. It is hell unleashed in paradise. A glistening white beach packed with home-made bunkers where civilians huddled to protect themselves from the shells that the Government denies launching in the final weeks of the offensive.
Fr Amalraj said: "There was heavy shelling from the army side. The LTTE shot people. The army were trying to capture us. The people were caught in between in the last moment for the LTTE and the crucial point in the battle, for the army. I cannot say which side was crueller."
Father Amalraj and his parishioners had been on the run since November, when they had fled their village of Poonakary. They had kept one step ahead of the advancing front, but were trapped in the end on a narrow strip of land on the eastern side of the Nanthikadal lagoon, north of Mullaitivu, in February, soon after it was designated as the "no-fire zone".
It was anything but.
"The shelling was just like raining," he said. "Within this 2square kilometres there were more than 100,000 people, packed in and shells raining down."
Many were killed. The UN believes that between 8000 and 10,000 civilians have died in the conflict since the beginning of this year.
Father Amalraj believes the final tally is far higher. "We cannot say exactly how many died but it was many. I think about 20,000."
At the camp, mechanical diggers have carved out a surrounding trench. "These people are not allowed to leave," UN humanitarian co-ordinator Gerson Brandao said. "Civilians shouldn't be behind barbed wire."
Father Amalraj was shocked by what he found on his arrival with his parishioners on a military bus last Monday.
"The concentration camps of the Second World War are here in Sri Lanka," he said.
At Manik Farm, the boys – and some girls – of fighting age were separated for screening and have not been seen since. Many are underage and were never willing combatants; the Tigers were notorious for abducting children to fight and carry arms.
Father Amalraj's parishioners clamour to tell of their missing offspring.
"When the children came out, the Government told them that if they told the truth, they would be safe," said Mahalam, whose 17-year-old daughter, Sathal, was taken from her seven days ago and has not been seen since.
The Government says it has taken suspected fighters for "rehabilitation" in special security camps and has refused to allow access to aid agencies.
Mr Ban, who came to Sri Lanka to urge that access, left without it.
The lack of outside aid unnerves the inmates. "There is no people like you here," Kumar whispers, hiding behind the crowds lined up for Mr Ban's visit. "There is not enough food. There is not enough hospital here."
How long does he think he will he be here for?
"I don't know. Maybe forever? We are afraid we will be killed. If I tell the truth, I will be killed."
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