Tamil mothers recognize disappeared children, in a photo with President Sirisena
Colombo (AsiaNews) - Two Tamil mothers recognized their missing children, a boy and a girl, in a flyer election belonging to the campaign of President Maithripala Sirisena, elected last January.
From that day Yogeswaran Chandrans (Hindu) and Kasipillai Jeyawanitha (Catholic), mothers of Yogeswaran Mauran and Kasipillai Jeromi have not stopped looking for their children, but without success. The disappearance was in 2009, the last year of the bloody war (lasting 30 years) between the army and Tamil rebels.
The leaflet shows Sirisena smiling among some young people, among which there are the faces of the two disappeared Tamils . "These are our children and our president is with them – says one of the mothers - the President took the photo just before the presidential election, so we are sure that he knows where they are. We are happy to know that they are alive somewhere on this earth. "
"Mauran was 23 when he disappeared," says Yogeswaran Chandrans, 52 years. "He studied at Chinna Puarasakulam Pulliankulam. After school he worked in the rice fields with his sick father. In those days we hid our children from the LTTE [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, separatist militias in the north of the country ed], because they kidnapped them to send them to fight. That day they took my son. After some time - she continues - some young people managed to escape and surrender to the regular army. Mauran was also among them. Since that day we have tried to find him in all the refugee camps, but we never found him".
Even Jeromi, the daughter of Kasipillai Jeyawanitha, was kidnapped in the same way: "It was March 4, 2009 when she was taken, she was only 17 years old. They made her do military training until the regular army has raided the camp and took her and all of the young people into custody. A boy - she continues - testified that he saw my daughter among them. This young man then died in a grenade explosion. From that day I and other mothers went everywhere looking for them, we have held protest marches everywhere, but we have had no answer".
"When we saw the flyer - Kasipillai Jeyawanitha continues- Icould not contain the joy in my heart. I believed that God would make me my child! I went through the village to ask for them to vote for Sirisena, so that when he became president we would find our children. "
The women managed to meet President on August 7. "We showed him the flyer - says Kasipillai Jeyawanitha - and he looked so attentive. He said he will set up a special department for cases like this. So far, however, we have not achieved any result. "
The women are asking the President to disclose what the school where you took the photo of the flyer. "We have not recognized the school uniform, tie and badge - they say - and we do not know where the school is. Only the President knows. We are sure that he recognized our children, and if we need to we will do DNA testing. "
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