A British woman who was working at a hospital helping victims of Sri Lanka's civil war has been interned in one of the island's detention camps, prompting her family to plead for urgent diplomatic help to secure her immediate release.
Speaking to the Guardian, relatives of Damilvany Gnanakumar – known as Vany – said that she was detained a fortnight ago as the Sri Lankan army moved in to finish off the remnants of the Tamil Tigers after a military onslaught that left thousands dead and sent many more fleeing for their lives.
The British passport holder, who has a background in biomedical science, called the family home in Chingford, Essex, on 19 May, to beg for help.
"She said: 'I'm in this camp, you have to get me out of here,' but then the phone went dead," said her sister, Subha Mohanathas, 29, yesterday. She said that her mother, Lathaa, 45, was desperately worried, but she believed that her sister would pull through.
"Vany is one of the strongest people, she can do whatever she likes because she is not really frightened of anything.
"I just want my sister back with me as soon as possible. My mum is crying and we need her back. We didn't have anything to do with the war."
Gnanakumar had spent the last few months working in temporary hospitals in the no-fire zone, where doctors have struggled to save the lives of civilians injured during intense fighting.
Diplomatic efforts to secure her release have so far been unsuccessful and last night her family appealed to the Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to allow her to return to the
She is being held in the Menik Farm camps outside the town of
The family said that Gnanakumar had been staying in Mullivaykkal - the scene of some of the heaviest fighting - and had called in January to say that she had been caught up in the conflict and was unable to leave. On 12 May they saw her on a Tamil television programme working in a hospital.
"We had not heard anything from her until then, we didn't know whether she was still alive, whether something had happened to her," said Mohanthas.
Her father, Kandasamy Kumaran, 51, who has written to his MP, Iain Duncan Smith, appealing for help, said she had come into contact with some doctors and had said she was willing to help because of her background in biomedical science. She had also had training and work experience at a British hospital, he said.
"She was recruited by the Mullivaykkal hospital to help and nurse the injured. In fact, I saw her [on television] assisting and looking after the wounded patients," he said.
Gnanukumar's uncle, Navaratnasamy Naguleswaran, said the family had decided to make a public appeal because they were concerned that attempts to secure her release through the Foreign Office had so far proven unsuccessful.
He said the family had received a call last Friday from the Foreign Office to say that it was seeking her release, but that information since then had been sparse.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian from the no-fire zone on 12 May, Gnanakumar described the horrors of the final days of the 26-year war. A shell had exploded at the hospital where she was working, killing 47 people.
"This is really a disaster. I don't know really how to explain it. At the moment, it is like hell," she said at the time. "For us, shell bombing is just a normal thing now. It is like an everyday routine. We have reached a point where it's like death is not a problem at all."
The Sri Lankan government maintains that civilian casualties were the result of attacks by the LTTE designed to generate adverse publicity for the military.
But the UN has described the civilian toll as "unacceptably high". Estimates for the death toll this year alone range from 8,000 to more than double that number.
