Mother dies after searching for missing son for 11 years

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 24 July 2019, 22:54 GMT]
A 74-year-old mother of a Tamil male subjected to enforced disappearance eleven years ago in Mannaar has passed away after suffering a heart attack in Mullaiththeevu on Wednesday. The representatives of the district organisation of the families of persons subjected to enforced disappearances said that the mother, Thresamma Sebamalai, was an active member in their continuous protest during the past 869 days. She was trying to trace the whereabouts of her son for the past 11 years. Mrs Sebamalai was living at Ira'naip-paalai in Puthuk-kudiyiruppu.

The advancing Sinhala Navy detained her son, Jeyapragash Sebamalai in Mannaar in July 2008 during the genocidal onslaught on Vanni.

The continuous protest in Mullaiththeevu began on 08 March 2017. Mrs Sebamalai was taking part in almost all the protests since then.

The successive regimes in Colombo have been largely ignoring the protesting mothers. Instead, it wants them to end the protests, receive a meaningless ‘certificate’ and accept whatever it wants to allocate as ‘humanitarian assistance’.

At the same time, the international human rights regime has also abandoned them. The only solution the IC has come so far is the establishment of the Office Mission Persons (OMP). The protesting families have outrightly rejected the OMP as a solution.

Now they are passing away, one by one, the fellow activists said.

At least four other mothers, who had taken part in the continuous protests in Vanni have passed away in the recent years without knowing what had happened to their sons and daughters, the members of the organisation said.



Viyalamma Velupillai, an aged mother who had been searching for her son, Thiyagarajah Veluppillai, for the last 30 years, passed away on 13 July. Her son was reported missing at Erukkalam-piddi in Mannaar in 1989.

Velu Saraswathy amma, a mother of three Tamil Eelam war-heroes, passed away due to a heart attack in February 2019. Saraswathy amma, who hails from Chelvaraa'ni-kudiyiruppu, Maang-ku'lam, was searching for her daughter, an ex-LTTE fighter, who had been abducted after being released from the custody of the SL military.

68-year-old Shanmugarajah Vijayaluxmy from Theavipuram in Mullaiththeevu passed away in January 2019. She was trying to locate her son, who was detained by the SL Army at Valaignar-madam in 2009.

55-year-old Jacintha Peiris passed away in October 2015 after searching for her husband and son for nine years. They had been subjected to ‘white-van abduction’.

Chronology: