Mary's way to Chettikulam

Mary* is a beautiful 14 year old girl. She grew up with her younger sister Vidharshana in a village called Kanagaraimkulam, in the Killinochchi district in the northern part of Sri Lanka. She remembers her village not as a peaceful place but as a place always threatened with terror as it was a village bordering the LTTE held area. She knows that she had a brother but has no recollection of him; he had been taken away by the LTTE, recruited as a soldier when she was very small.

During the last stages of the war when the government forces were closing in on them, Mary and her family kept moving from place to place along with the other families from their neighbourhood. She has no idea if they walked north, south, east or west. She only knows that they packed a lot of belongings before they set out. Gradually as they spent day after day in the jungles and when ever her father said let’s go, they kept walking and on the way left behind many of the initial things they had brought with them. All the time not seeing a single government soldier but hearing the deafening noise of the artillery and dreading the sound of helicopters and air craft that flew very low and “dropped fire on them”.

This continued for weeks on end and they had no food at most days. They weren’t allowed to light any fires at night. They slept in the open and when it rained it did not matter as time went on they accepted this as normal. One particular night she will never forget was in an area called Mulliwaikal, when during the night heavy fighting erupted and “fire” was being dropped from all over and when the chaos was over, her mother and father were found dead. Her grandmother and her younger sister survived and kept moving with the crowd. She doesn’t know who or where they were being led to. Finally not knowing how the three of them emerged on government controlled land with around 70 other men, women and children. From here they were packed into buses and were driven “somewhere”, we presume this to be to Manik Farm in Chettikulam.

Chettikulam (the area is called Manik Farm relief village) is about 60 km north of Anuradhapura (the location of an SOS Children's Village with 14 families and 121 children). This area was chosen by the government for temporarily accommodating the internally displaced people (IDP) until such time they could return to their places of origin.

Now she feels like she’s at home after coming to the SOS Temporary Care Project with her sister. The grandmother lives in the camp and once a month she visits them. Mary hopes to start a new life and face the challenges ahead of her.

*Name changed for privacy reasons.