News
Child survivors speak of life in camps
Sixteen-year-old N.D. Saumya Dilki has lost interest in school. The grade 11 student of Hathgampala Maha Vidyalaya is due to sit her GCE (Ordinary Level) Examination this year. However, the landslide at Samasara Hill in Aranayake has tragically altered her life forever. She lost both her father and her younger brother that day when their home was buried under rubble. Saumya, originally from the Elangipitiya colony, is now among the hundreds of children living in temporary displacement camps. She does not attempt to hide her frustration with camp life. “We were such a happy family, but the hill took it all away. There is no happiness in this camp. Even when we go to school, our friends keep asking us to explain what happened. I can’t concentrate on my studies,” she lamented.
S.P. Sahan Samarasinghe, a grade five student of Hathgampala Primary School, says his family maintained a chicken farm at their house. On the day of the landslide, Sahan, a resident of Siripura village in the Elangipitiya colony, had gone to visit his grandmother with his mother and sister. His father however, had stayed behind to tend to the chickens. After losing his father and his home, Sahan, his mother and sister are now all living in a camp.
Sahan says he also lost a friend in the landslide. Pansilu had been due to sit for the grade five scholarship examination with him. He has now lost his father, his friend and the little chicks from the farm that he and his sister played with daily. He says his mother cries a lot now and he and his sister cry with her.
Chamalsha Devmini, a grade one student of the same school, says she wants her father to bring back her little kitten. “We had to leave him when we ran from the landslide,” she explains. Her house had been at the very top of the hill, near where the landslide had first started. Her father and mother had grabbed her and fled down the mountain when the rocks began to fall. “My mother says she will get me a new kitten. My friends at school keep asking if I got caught in the landslide. I really don’t feel much like studying at school now.”
According to statistics, 402 children displaced by the landslide continue to remain in camps. At least 13 children from Pallebage village in the Elangipitiya colony are known to have perished in the landslide. It is clear that many of the students who continue to remain at the camps are suffering from severe mental trauma, with some showing signs of depression.
Meanwhile, search operations by the military to locate those missing due to the landslide formally came to an end on Thursday (2) following requests by relatives of the victims. Twenty-eight bodies were recovered from the site of the landslide. According to the Disaster Management Centre (DMC), a further 99 people are still classified as ‘missing’ due to the disaster.
