“Trincomalee has been paralysed by the violence. There have been blasts close to the navy camp and people in the surrounding area are evacuating.
“They are carrying their belongings away, but there is no real place for them to go. The fighting is 20km away, but everyone fears that violence will spread towards the town.
“All the offices are closed now and people don’t really know what is happening. There is a war out there, there is fighting. It is very heavy and I feel the casualties will be high.
“We can hear the action but we can’t really see it. It’s very frightening. I live near the navy base which has been attacked by shells.
“Fighter planes are also in the surrounding areas. We can hear the noise of the planes overhead.
“We know there is fighting in the middle of the sea. Our home is very close to the sea - and so we are glued to the news trying to find out what exactly is happening.
“This is the second time I have experienced a wave of violence like this. I am from Jaffna originally but we had to come here after 1987 when there were bombardments and aerial attacks in our area.
“Trincomalee is different to Jaffna. The city is divided equally between Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim.
“But we fear that the armed forces support the Sinhalese. They are fully Sinhalese themselves and we feel totally unrepresented.
“Community relations have been getting much worse. There is a lot of distrust these days. Last April, I had a bad experience in the bank where I work.
“There was a bomb blast near the marketplace and in the aftermath, a largely Sinhalese crowd gathered outside the bank and threw stones at the building. We narrowly escaped but a lot of damage was done.
“People walked in and broke the computers, threw our flower vases about. The army troops were around but they didn’t take any measures to control the crowd - in fact, we felt they were laughing at it all. It was terrible.
“It is actions like that which make us feel that the politicians, the people in power and the security forces only support the Sinhala population here.
“We are innocent too, and we don’t have any safety or security. The last few months have seen a real deterioration in quality of life for people living in this town.”
“They are carrying their belongings away, but there is no real place for them to go. The fighting is 20km away, but everyone fears that violence will spread towards the town.
“All the offices are closed now and people don’t really know what is happening. There is a war out there, there is fighting. It is very heavy and I feel the casualties will be high.
“We can hear the action but we can’t really see it. It’s very frightening. I live near the navy base which has been attacked by shells.
“Fighter planes are also in the surrounding areas. We can hear the noise of the planes overhead.
“We know there is fighting in the middle of the sea. Our home is very close to the sea - and so we are glued to the news trying to find out what exactly is happening.
“This is the second time I have experienced a wave of violence like this. I am from Jaffna originally but we had to come here after 1987 when there were bombardments and aerial attacks in our area.
“Trincomalee is different to Jaffna. The city is divided equally between Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim.
“But we fear that the armed forces support the Sinhalese. They are fully Sinhalese themselves and we feel totally unrepresented.
“Community relations have been getting much worse. There is a lot of distrust these days. Last April, I had a bad experience in the bank where I work.
“There was a bomb blast near the marketplace and in the aftermath, a largely Sinhalese crowd gathered outside the bank and threw stones at the building. We narrowly escaped but a lot of damage was done.
“People walked in and broke the computers, threw our flower vases about. The army troops were around but they didn’t take any measures to control the crowd - in fact, we felt they were laughing at it all. It was terrible.
“It is actions like that which make us feel that the politicians, the people in power and the security forces only support the Sinhala population here.
“We are innocent too, and we don’t have any safety or security. The last few months have seen a real deterioration in quality of life for people living in this town.”
