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Refugees who fled after an alleged military massacre on a northern Sri Lanka islet arrived at the inland Tamil Tiger capital at the weekend - and brought their fishing boats with them.
The 120 people from 27 families were among about 300 families who fled their homes in Allaipiddy on the Sri Lanka navy-controlled islet of Kayts after the May 13 killings in which 13 civilians were killed, the refugees told AFP Sunday.
“We are unable to go home while the military people are there,” said Xaviour Wilfred Kanista, 39.
She and the others arrived Saturday night and were staying at the District Cultural Hall in Kilinochchi that serves as the “capital” of territory controlled by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northeast of the island.
“Because of the safety” provided by the LTTE, they wanted to leave the government-held area, said Mardutheen Arulthas, 38, who was head of the local fishermen’s society in Allaipiddy.
He and the others spoke through an LTTE translator.
They had been staying at a church in Allaipiddy until international agencies helped them make their journey, they said in the sand-covered yard of the cultural hall.
Six small fishing boats, some with nets inside still smelling of the sea, sat on the sand under the hot morning sun.
Bicycles, bed frames, sewing machine tables and bags of other belongings also lay in the yard.
Most of the other Allaipiddy refugees, currently at a church in northern Jaffna, also want to move to the rebel-held area, Arulthas said.
The government has strongly condemned the killings and issued a statement saying they “could very well be a part of the LTTE strategy to divert international opinion.”
But the civilians who fled Allaipiddy told a different story.
They blamed the navy for the massacre, which happened two days after a Tamil Tiger suicide attack killed 18 crewmen on a navy gunboat.
Abiragam Ganaseeli, 45, a thin-faced woman in a blue sari, said her fisherman son Abiram Robinson, 27, was among eight people killed at one location.
The dead included the entire family of Keethes Waran, including his children aged four, and two months, they alleged.
The refugees showed AFP a picture of a pretty young woman in a red dress whom they said was the childrens’ mother, who also was killed.
None of the victims worked for the LTTE, the refugees said.
Those who fled the area told AFP the navy had begun to “harass the people” in late April.
“Out of fear all the people came and lived together in a two-storey house,” Kanista said.
She and Ganaseeli said most residents subsequently left the house and sought refuge at a church but some remained -- and allegedly became the navy’s victims.
Kanista said she could hear the early-evening gunfire from the church where she and the others were staying.
At least two people witnessed the slayings and survived, she said.
The massacre has further raised tensions in Sri Lanka where mounting violence has left a 2002 ceasefire in force only on paper.
April was the bloodiest month in four years, with more than 200 deaths.
Arulthas said he and the other men would like to get their boats off the sandy lot and back in the water.
“We want to go to a fishing area,” he said.
