Ilankai Tamil Sangam
Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA
Published by Sangam.org

Untold Tragedies #2

by K. Mylvaganam, July 7, 2008

Untold Tragedies #1

This is the pathetic story of Mrs Kunalingam Jeyaruby. She states how her family got devastated, when her parents got killed in a bomb attack.

“We are from Chavakachchceri on the Jaffna Peninsula. With the intention of doing cultivation, our father decided to move to Kandavalai Velikandal in the Vanni in the mid-1980s. My father was doing very well. We are 6 siblings; I am the third in the family. I and the three younger than me were born in Kandavalai. My eldest brother who was in the LTTE became a Martyr and my other elder sister too is in the LTTE cadre.

On 23.03.1998 I went to our aunt’s house while the rest went to school. Our parents were at home. A Sri Lankan Ari Force Kfir jet that came at 7.45 a.m. bombed our house. When I ran home I saw my father’s body on the road and my mother was profusely bleeding and panting for breath. I didn’t know what to do, but cried loudly. My mother opened her eyes and looked at me once and her eyes closed again. I knew that she too had left us. I couldn’t bear it and fainted immediately. I loved her so much. They too loved us immensely. To pay back their love, I toiled very hard all alone to educate and bring up the ones younger than me.

All four of us stayed with aunty for four months. The LTTE gave us a small plot of land, which had a few coconut palms in Vaddakachchi. We survived on the sale of the coconuts and the thatches I wove from the coconut leaves. I was only 16 then. Though I was in the 10th class, yet I gave up schooling to look after the younger ones, earn a living and maintain the house. My brothers studied only up to the O-Level and started working. I got married, but I am keeping my sister Jeyagowri with me. She is now employed as a sales girl in a boutique nearby.

If only our parents had lived, all of us would have got a sound education and led a prosperous life. One cussed bomb destroyed our lives. For the pilot it was only a pressing of a button, but it devastated the lives of all of us.

Untold Tragedies #3

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