Sunday 15 December 2024
Islamabad (News International/ Pakistan News - 15th December, 2024 ) This work is also an important means of supporting their families for these women.
“It is really difficult to work here and it is also a big challenge to take care of your team in all these conditions,” says Shivakumar Chandradevi, 48.
Chandradevi and her team carefully remove explosives from these tunnels.
These landmines are remnants of a war that claimed more than 100,000 lives.
Striving to restore peace
During the 26-year-long civil war, the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil rebel organization, also known as the Tamil Tigers, laid landmines against each other as a war strategy.
Despite the end of the war with the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, these landmines still pose a serious threat to civilians.
“If we clear these mines, thousands of people will get their jobs back,” says Sundaramurthy Saseerika, 47.
The situation created by the civil war has also had a profound impact on Sundaramurthy Saseerika’s life. However, the suffering she has endured has made her stronger and more courageous.
Along with this work, she also takes care of her son and mother. She believes that women can face any difficulty in life with a little courage and determination.
Waiting for loved ones who have been missing for years
More than 20,000 people went missing during the war, the majority of whom belonged to the Tamil community. In 2020, the Sri Lankan government declared all of these missing people dead, which caused a wave of despair among their families.
According to the United Nations, Sri Lankan security forces and armed groups like the Tamil Tigers used to disappear people to intimidate their opponents.
Seventy-four-year-old Nadraja Sivaranjani’s son and granddaughter went missing in 2009. Holding photos of her loved ones, she questions the government’s offer of compensation, saying, “Will a mother accept compensation in place of her missing children?”
The legal struggle of the victims
The Sri Lankan government has also been discredited by promises of reconciliation and peace.
President Anuradha Kumara Dissanayake recently announced that Tamils would be given back their occupied lands.
Some people in Sri Lanka’s Malaithi region are fighting a legal battle to get their lands back. Human rights lawyer VSS Thanchayan said that farmers, fishermen, and other poor people come to him with complaints that a state department has laid claim to their land.
They have no land left for farming, their only source of income. Most of their documents were lost during the 2004 tsunami and the 2009 riots, making it extremely difficult for them to prove their ownership of the land in court.
Many lands belonging to Tamil farmers and social activists in the eastern and northern parts of Sri Lanka have been seized under the guise of development projects.
In the final stages of the war, the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers committed serious crimes such as murder, enforced disappearances and sexual violence. The United Nations has details of these war crimes. However, various governments have rejected calls for the establishment of a tribunal to independently investigate these war crimes, calling the issue an internal matter.
Mental health also affected
The effects of wars are not only physical but also mental and emotional.
Like others affected by this war, Chandradevi also lives on the hope of being reunited with her loved ones. The loss of her husband and son also severely affected her mental health. She says that she has never seen a moment of happiness in her life. The only source of comfort for her is her work, because if she did not work, it would have been impossible for her to bear all this.
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