‘Grim reminder’: Sri Lanka’s Tamils mark 15 years since end of civil war

Ceremony held at memorial site in Mullivaikkal village despite reports of heavy surveillance and allegations of intimidation.

Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil community is marking 15 years since the end of the island nation’s civil war in an emotional ceremony that proceeded despite fears that authorities could prevent its staging.

Public events celebrating the Tamil Tigers separatist group, which fought a no-holds-barred battle to establish an ethnic minority homeland, are illegal and authorities have blocked past memorials.

Over the years, Sri Lankan authorities have repeatedly disrupted similar memorials in the island’s former war zones and arrested participants, but Saturday’s ceremony went ahead despite reports of heavy surveillance and allegations of intimidation.

Tamils say the events are held to remember all victims of the decades-long war, which concluded in 2009 after a military offensive in the last Tigers stronghold, that saw at least 40,000 civilians killed in its final months, according to estimates by the United Nations.

The operation was condemned internationally for the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians.

“Thousands died here the day before the war ended,” a 41-year-old Tamil village official, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, told the AFP news agency at the memorial site in Mullivaikkal, on Saturday.

“There were lots of wounded people crying for help,” he added. “This will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Several thousand Tamils had travelled to the village for the remembrance, where they lit oil lamps to commemorate the dead.

This year, the commemoration was attended by Amnesty International’s global chief Agnes Callamard, the most senior foreign dignitary so far to attend a