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Going without water and food for four days, walking past burnt bodies and flattened buildings, a group of relieved but shaken refugees arrive at safety. No, this is not a scene from Lebanon but the experience of refugees fleeing the fighting raging between the military and the LTTE in Mutur.

They are some of the lucky ones who were able to seek refuge among relatives in a Colombo suburb.

The tired refugees consisting mainly of women and children sit in a small room at a house in Wellampitiya, thankful to be away from the scene of death and destruction.

Some of the women have seen their husbands killed while two pregnant women suffered miscarriages on the way. The children are too young to understand what has hit them.

Eight families consisting of about 35 people sit huddled together. They arrived in Colombo yesterday with a little bit of help from their relatives. But they all say they are anxious to get back to Mutur as soon as the situation is safe.

“On Tuesday at about 10. 30 p.m. the power supply suddenly went out and at about 11 p.m. the attacks began. Our houses which are in Mutur town were destroyed. People started running in all directions in panic when the bombs started landing with loud explosions,” said Sirajudeen Mohamed Uvais, a father of three.

Sirajudeen is the Principal of Mutur Periyapalam Vidyalaya but he fled to Colombo with no documents not even his National Identity Card.

According to these refugees there are about 5000 residents in Mutur while about 35,000 have fled to Kantalai and are facing many hardships.

“We walked for four days without any food or water. Some of us were so desperate that we even drank muddy-water. Some women fainted when they saw bodies lying about. The children were crying out of hunger, thirst and exhaustion. It was a nightmare,” said 36-year-old Kiaththu Mohamed Najmudeen recounting their ordeal while fleeing to Kantalai.

When the group reached the LTTE checkpoint the women and children were asked to proceed along the main road but the men whose hands werwe tied were forced to walk along a jungle path for about six hours. At this point the Army started attacking and the LTTE left the men and fled. Six of the men died while the others managed to escape through the Mutur- Kantalai road.

Once they got to the safety of Kantalai they sought refuge in schools and mosques.

“We were treated well by the people in the area, but there was a lack of water and food. Most of all we were scared,” said Najmudeen.

Twenty-year-old Amanullah Razmi stares ahead in silence. His mother was killed on the first day that the fighting started in Mutur and his father is lying injured in hospital.

About 30,000 people have been displaced mainly from the areas of Mahindapura, Serunuwara, Kattaparicchan, Selvanagar,Thoppur and Pahalathoppur in the Trincomalee District.

Trincomalee’s District Secretary Ranjith de Silva said many refugees are housed in schools in Kantalai, Serunuwara, Kinniya and Thambalagama.

“People in the area are preparing food for the refugees but electricity and water is a problem. We don’t have enough drinking water and the schools where the displaced are housed have no electricity,” he said.

He also said that nine doctors have arrived from Colombo and the Ministry of Disaster Management had promised to send cooking utensils and other essentials.

When contacted the ICRC told The Sunday Times it had sent a convoy of 20 trucks with food supplies, four buses and two ambulances but could not proceed on Friday due to security reasons. But the vehicles were able to reach the camps yesterday when the fighting was halted, David Vignati, ICRC’s Communication manager said.