Fate of teenage students disappeared during war on Vanni remains unknown

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 July 2010, 05:20 GMT]
At least a thousand of the persons disappeared during Sri Lanka government’s war on Vanni are students below the age of eighteen and their families, mostly mothers, have begun a desperate search for their children gone missing after arrest by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) at the end of the war, Education Department sources in Ki’linochchi said. Sri Lanka government has failed to disclose the particulars of the teenage students who had either surrendered or been arrested while humanitarian organizations responsible for tracing persons disappeared have no information on them, the sources added.

Most of the resettled families in Vanni, having lost their family heads and male members, the mothers have begun to put up notices with details of their children gone missing, outside the schools where they had been studying.

The mother of Tharmalingam Kaviraj, 16, a tenth grade student of Ki’linochchi Tharmapuram Makaa Viththiyaalyam, who had lost her husband during the war had put up a notice seeking her son. She said that she is unable to get any information about him from any of the related authorities.

Similar notices have appeared in many schools in Vanni which have begun to function after resettlement.

The social activists and organizations, vociferous on the rights of children and child soldiers during the war, are now conspicuously inactive doing nothing to help trace the teenage students disappeared during the final days of Sri Lanka government’s war on Vanni, education circles in Vanni said.