CHENNAI: A Sri Lankan
Tamil family split by the bloody ethnic war is all set to be reunited
after six long years. Nithya (31), who was separated from her husband and elder
daughter after she was abducted along with her two other children in 2006, has
finally managed to trace them to the Netherlands.
Nithya reached Chennai early last year
with younger daughter Dharani (9) and son Mathuran (7) and went around various
refugee camps in Tamil Nadu in search of husband Sadasivam (33) and daughter
Lavani (10). "Something kept telling me that they were alive,"
says Nithya.
It was a wild goose chase till somebody
at the Mandapam camp in Rameswaram told her to approach the Indian
Red Cross Society in Chennai. Red Cross officer N
Krishnamurthy activated the agency's global tracking network in May 2011
and traced Sadasivam through the Netherlands Red Cross chapter on July 11 last year.
'I was kept in a dark chamber and tortured for three years'
Nithya first spoke to her daughter over
phone. "I couldn't believe my own eyes when my husband spoke to me the
same evening using a web camera," Nithya tells TOI at the Red Cross office
in Chennai.
It was in 2006, when the war restarted,
that the family got separated. The family had moved into her uncle's house in
Thalaimannar. "One morning, just after Lavani had gone to school, a group
of people abducted me and my younger children. They blindfolded us and took us
to an army camp in Vanni and asked me to spot my husband. He was not there. I
was kept in a dark chamber and tortured for three years. My son was only a few
months old then," says Nithya.
As she breaks down by those haunting memories, her son walks up to her and wipes the tears. She hugs him. In a while, the boy is fast asleep on her lap. Burns she suffered in the camp have left marks on her hand. After a while she recovers from the seared thoughts and continues, "A friend of mine helped me with some money. I gave it as well as my jewels to the army officials and got released in 2010. It took almost a year to get passports for us. Ever since we approached the Red Cross, its chairman Harish Mehta has been helping us financially." If not India, she knew her husband would be in the Netherlands, because he used to tell her about seeking asylum there.
As she breaks down by those haunting memories, her son walks up to her and wipes the tears. She hugs him. In a while, the boy is fast asleep on her lap. Burns she suffered in the camp have left marks on her hand. After a while she recovers from the seared thoughts and continues, "A friend of mine helped me with some money. I gave it as well as my jewels to the army officials and got released in 2010. It took almost a year to get passports for us. Ever since we approached the Red Cross, its chairman Harish Mehta has been helping us financially." If not India, she knew her husband would be in the Netherlands, because he used to tell her about seeking asylum there.
Sadasivam's life was not easy either.
"On hearing about the abduction of his wife and children, he rushed to the
school to save Lavani. Thinking that Nithya and other children were killed by
the army, he came to India with Lavani. From here, he went to Amsterdam. After
we got in touch with him, he started sending Rs 3,000 every month for his
family's sustenance. Only recently we came to know that he was skipping one
meal every day and was saving from the food allowance provided by the Netherlands government. He belongs to the last batch of
people to get asylum in the Netherlands," says Krishnamurthy.
"We had to counsel Nithya initially because she was suffering from suicide syndrome. If her husband could not be traced, she wanted to hand over her children to somebody else and die. It took some time for her to recover," he says. After a year's paper work, the Indian government issued exit permits for the three on Monday. Their visas had come two weeks ago, said Krishnamurthy.
"We had to counsel Nithya initially because she was suffering from suicide syndrome. If her husband could not be traced, she wanted to hand over her children to somebody else and die. It took some time for her to recover," he says. After a year's paper work, the Indian government issued exit permits for the three on Monday. Their visas had come two weeks ago, said Krishnamurthy.
Both in the run-up to and after the strife, many a people have paid a heavy price for the United Nation's hesitation to rein in the Lankan forces, laments D A Prabakar, vice-chairman of Indian Red Cross Society, Tamil Nadu branch, while handing over the flight tickets to Nithya. Red Cross members donated Rs 86,000 for the tickets. Leaving the dreadful memories of her ravaged life behind, Nithya will fly to Amsterdam on Thursday morning with a frock for Lavani and a T-shirt for Sadasivam in her baggage.
