The US has finally released a strong statement about the massacres in Sri Lanka.
But while talk is important, the realities on the ground remain dire. This report from somebody in the conflict zone itself:
More than 1500 people, innocent civilians perished today.… Who knows?… The number will certainly be more.… What hurts the most is that these people held on to their lives for this long since this tragic displacement began taking lives in large numbers in January 2009.… They lived with the hope that someone out there will show a face of humanity and protect them.… They moved from place to place, building bunkers for their safety each time they moved, from Mannar district to Mullaithivu district. They lived with the hope that the demands of their brotherns in foreign lands to their respective governments will bear fruit one day.… Now, they are gone.… I cannot walk to them.… I cannot run there to help them.… They are only a few kilo metres from the bunker I currently live in. The wounded might still be lying there until someone with the strongest heart can get to them.
Survivors came in lines leaving all their belongings to recite me horrible stories of the dead.… I walked to a small shop a few metres from where I live in.… There was a… little girl, two years old.… She had blood oozing from wounds to her stomach, forehead and thigh. She was a lovely little girl who knew nothing of what is happening around her.… The young man beside her was getting her to drink some water from the shop.… I asked the man to give her boiled water.… What else can I say in a place where almost all the people are either affected by diarrhea, stomachache, chicken pox or starvation. The young man then recited me the story of the little girl.… She had lost her parents that morning in Sri Lankan army’s shelling at Ambalavanpokkanai.… The young man was their neighbour.… He had carried the child this way in the hope of saving the baby’s life.… Some other people talked about how they had walked past dead bodies sometimes even stamped them while they panicked and walked out of their residences.
It seems the United Nations’ representatives need some solid proof of the killings of innocent civilians.… I really wish one of them could fly down here and get their proof once and for all.… Warn you, before you come, give your goodbyes to your family.… You are most likely to not seem them again.… People are being burnt in phosphorus bombs, in cluster bombs and indiscriminate shelling.… Who the hell do you want proof from? When will your conscience wake you up? Are you expecting the Tigers to do the same to innocent Sinhala people so that you can balance it out and release a statement… condemning both sides and be the neutral body? World, break your silence and save a few lives or else history will never forgive you.
Thamilsudar
How many more Tamils need to die before the Sri Lankan government is forced to stop?