MISSING TSUNAMI CHILDREN...!!!

missing tsunami children still haunt parents after 2004 disaster

Lionel Silva still remembers the last words his five year old son, Kartheek spoke before being washed away in the waves of the 2004 tsunami.
"Thathi I'm scared. Please help me," he had said, holding his father's hand with a firm grip. Silva's voice breaks as he tells of the tragedy.

He is among many anguished parents searching for their children, even four years after the tsunami swept through the coastal communities of Sri Lanka, killing over 30,000 people and displacing thousands of more.

Silva, who had just entered his house after buying his early morning ration had rushed to the back of the house, tucking his son under his arm and struggling to maintain his grip on his only child. When he saw the huge waves heading towards his tiny house, he held onto a tree in his backyard trying to protect little Kartheek who was crying. When the water slammed into his living room, his son had screamed saying he was scared to die and had begged his father not to let go of him. Despite Silva's firm grip around his son's hand, he could feel his child drifting away as both of them were swallowed by the waves.

"I held onto him as tightly as I could. But when the water slammed into our house and backyard, I lost control because of the force of the waves. I could feel myself fighting with the water to hold onto my son But since he was much smaller than me, he easily drifted away," Silva cried.

When the water had receded, Silva lost control of himself, screaming his son's name. "I thought he would have been thrown a short distance away from me. I thought I would die when I did not see him anymore," he said.

Silva searched for his son desperately that day without returning back to his ruined home. Ignoring the hundreds of people who were weeping around him to see the dead bodies lying everywhere, Silva only wanted his son.

"I knew I would find him. I just had a ray of hope alive in me. I searched till I fell on my knees exhausted. I searched for him continuously for 48 hours without sleeping, eating or drinking," he said.

Silva returned back to his tiny ruined house, two days later without his son by his side. He visited relatives and friends who had also lost their loved ones to query if they had seen his son. No one said they saw him till two months after the tsunami, he got a phone call from a friend, saying his son had been spotted in Colombo - a great distant from Silva's home in Matara.

"My friend told me he had seen a child in Colombo who bore a great resemblance of my son. He told me he had seen him with an old couple. I immediately travelled to Colombo but where was I to search? I was clueless and alone," Silva said.

Silva returned back home after a week and ever since has been waiting for some news of his son. Having lost his wife six years ago, when little Kartheek was only three years old, Silva says that he is now all alone and will do anything to have his son back home.

Many families across the country are preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ this week and a new life while other families await a fresh beginning with the dawn of a new year. In some homes though there are only tears and despair, with a frenetic search still on. For these homes, time has still not run out as they wait for their children who they believe are still missing after the 2004 tsunami, to return back home.

They cannot rest, they cannot eat, they cannot work and they cannot sleep for terrible thoughts overwhelm them. A single word, a telephone call or a single rumor on the whereabouts of their children see families going in search, a search which has so far ended in vain.

While these parents and close relatives keep looking, even four years after the worst natural disaster the country has faced in recent times, they say they will never give up till their children return back home safely to them.

"I know my child is alive because many people told me they had seen him days after the tsunami. He had been crying, searching for me. I know he is out their, somewhere waiting for me to come and bring him back home," Silva said.

What worries him now is the state his son is in. Is he being forced to work as a servant? Is he being beaten or sexually abused? Has he been adopted by a childless couple? The unanswered questions whirling in his mind is endless and the fear just unbearable.

However Silva is not alone in his quest of searching for his son. There are many others like 55 year old Kumari from Hikkaduwa who also lost her 13 year old daughter, Dulani on that disastrous day.

Kumari said that her daughter had disappeared in the waves in front of her very own eyes, but was said to have been spotted two weeks after the disaster by a distant relative, in Galle.

"She was wearing a Black blouse and a white skirt," my relative told me. "Those were her very clothes." The moment Kumari heard this news, she rushed to Galle the same day, with her brother in law. They searched for four continuous days but returned home, depressed and without hope.

A month later, a friend who had seen Dulani's photograph was insistent that the girl was spotted in Matara. "She had been with another girl, a friend had told Kumari.

Kumari had immediately picked up the telephone and informed the Matara Police that her child had been spotted and she would send them a photograph of her daughter that very day. Kumari, after visiting the Matara Police station had gone from temple to temple and soothsayer to soothsayer, while also approaching official bodies such as the Police Women's and Children's Bureau in Matara and the National Child Protection Authority in Colombo. "I will continue to look for her because I know she is alive. I only pray she is put of danger's way," Kumari said.

Another unforgettable story is that of 45 year old Jackson. He lost both his sons aged 11 and 6 when the tsunami crashed into his house in Hambantota.

Just before the waters crushed his house, Jackson's wife had screamed to save her two sons. Jackson's family members, his father and mother had saved themselves by climbing a tree and his younger sister by precariously hanging on to a TV antenna.

"On Christmas day I had bought two shirts and trousers for my two boys which still hang in their cupboards, waiting for them to return. Both my sons would have grown up by now. Their elder sister who shared the room with them, guards their possessions, knowing that they will return some day. Many people have seen them after the tsunami and we know that they are alive," Jackson said.

Jackson's elder daughter, Madhu, was with her uncle and friend when the tsunami struck. She says she saw her brothers disappearing into the water but they did not drown.

"I know they are out their somewhere. I know because my friend saw them both one day with an old man. They are alive," she cries.

The moment the family realized that the two boys were missing, Jackson and his wife had been searching every single day. Many are the clues to indicate that they are alive. "A couple of people had seen them and described the clothes they had been wearing in detail to us," he said while his wife cried next to him. Although deep within their hearts they are sure that their boys are alive, their house is now being white-washed and on December 26 they will have a pooja and pirith ceremony.

"We put up many posters of my two boys a month after the tsunami. The posters resulted in many phone calls from who had seen them, describing the clothes they were wearing. In one phone call, the man told me that my younger son had been crying," Jackson said.

Jackson's family's hopes remain to be raised. They say the search for their two boys will continue till they bring their two boys back home, safe and sound.

Meanwhile, in the other part of the island in the jungles of the rebel-controlled north, which was also severely affected by the tsunami, parents even four years after the tsunami continue to scour into refugee camps hoping to find their missing children. "People are still extremely stressed," says an NGO activist in the Vanni, who has left Killinochchi after the government recently ruled out that all NGO's had to clear away from the area. Some parents who have now fled from Kilinochchi due to the fighting say they still believe their children are alive and are in LTTE training camps, the activist said.

"Sometimes they see a child who looks like their own and their hopes get raised. But if they are with the LTTE now, there is nothing much they can do and hope and pray that the war will end soon so that they can be reunited with their children again," she said.

Immediately after the tsunami, which left thousands even in the north of the country homeless, human rights groups claimed that the LTTE, which has a history of recruiting child soldiers, had picked up all the tsunami waifs.

Many believe that the LTTE have used these children as child soldiers, training them to kill. "These parents have not given up hope as they hear stories of their children being alive. They are in a very sad situation as they are unable to let go of the memories of their young ones," the NGO activist said.

While four years have passed and hundreds of families still continue to search for their children, they know that their chances in finding them now are indeed very slim. However the candles which will burn on December 26 and the poojas which will be chanted for the children's safe return back home, is a sign of hope that these children may someday return back home to them to be reunited and lead a life with their families just like the old times - before the tsunami crashed into their houses and robbed away everything they had.
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