Children of the east

The eyes of the two young teenagers lit up when they spoke of their ambitions. One wants to be a doctor. His friend was not far behind; his dream was to become an engineer. These are perfectly ordinary dreams, of course, but the lives of 14-year-old Mana Mandaraja and 13-year-old Prabhakaran Sivakrishnan have been far from ordinary. They have lived most of their lives under the control of the LTTE in eastern Sri Lanka, part of a mass exodus of civilians, numbering well over 100,000, who fled their villages when Sri Lankan government troops advanced into LTTE territory in Batticaloa District in March 2007. Three months later, the two, along with their families and thousands of others, returned to their villages, after the Colombo government began a massive resettlement programme following troops wresting control of the areas under Tiger rule.

The teenagers hail from Ichchanthivu, a remote village about 15 km from Batticaloa town, which, until March 2007, had been under LTTE control for a decade. But while they may have returned to their homes, their lives are far from back to normal. "Look at these roads, look at the ditches," Mandaraja said, pointing at the crater-like mud ponds in the middle of the road, created by the recent rains. "Most of the houses are damaged; our school buildings are the same. Someone needs to rebuild these." Mandaraja wants to be an engineer, to fix the roads and buildings of his village. There certainly is much in need of massive repairs, due to the years of conflict and neglect.