What Happened
Udumpankulan and Thankavelayuthapuram are situated near the Thirukovil area in the Amparai district.
On 19.02.1985, early in the morning, 85 Sri Lankan military personnel from the Amparai camp arrived in six military vehicles. They went into the paddy fields where hundreds of poor farmers were busy with harvesting work. They rounded up 103 people in the fields and took them to the forest nearby. There they raped and cut the breasts off from the women and killed them. Others were lined up and shot dead.
In total 103 people were killed including many children. The military spread the harvested hay over the bodies and set fire to it.
Victim of rape and eye witness: "On the night, the Army rounded up all the people working in the paddy field. They started shooting the men. They raped five of us in the paddy field itself. As we couldn't bear the pain, we lost consciousness. After an hour we recovered and ran into a cave of a mountain. From there we saw the soldiers covering all the bodies with paddy sacks and dried grass and setting fire to those bodies. They found 66 people massacred. There is no justice here. No compensation was paid to us who were raped by the soldiers."
Perpetrators
Sri Lankan Army
Sources & References
- NESOHR - Lest We Forget Volume I