The community from Vadamaradchi-East, Jaffna
Last year, in the month of August, nearly 15,000 Tamil civilians of 3000 families from the Vadamaradchi East fishing villages of, Kudarappu, Mamunai, Sempiyanpattu, Thalaiyadi, Maruthankerny and Vaththirayan in the LTTE administered areas displaced due to the Sri Lankan military artillery and multi barrel barrages. They were settled in various welfare centers by the NGOs.
 Mamunai school, Sempiyanpattu north school, Thalaiyadi school, Maruthankerny school, Uduthurai school, Arliyavalai school and Vettilaikerny school in this region stopped functioning since then. Maruthankerny hospital, the only hospital functioning in Vadamaradchi east, was damaged in the shelling by the Sri Lankan military. Vadamaradhchi east fishermen union building and the newly built church were also completely damaged. Presently patients from this displaced community, needing urgent medical attention, are forced to travel to the Kallaru or Kandavalai hospital further away from their resettled places. Most of the infrastructures of this community including, Social and Economic development bank, Government Agent office, Multi Purpose Co-operative Society building and Samudhri office were either damaged or changed their location. The new locations of these institutions are not known to the displaced people and these are also far away from their temporary settlements. People from this region depend mostly on fishing for their livelihood. Since they displaced from their fishing coastal villages their livelihood is denied to them. These people have now resettled in the coastal villages of Uduthurai, Vettilaikerni, Kaddaikadu, Kevil, and Sundikulam so that they can restart their fishing livelihood. Even in their newly settled locations, these people are facing many hardships including harassments by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces at sea, in land, and from air. They are facing lack of fuel and they are being denied markets for their catches. Their catches and the dry fish produce cannot be exported to the southern parts of the island because of restrictions placed by the Sri Lankan government. Commenting on the plight of the community, President of the Consortium of the Unions of Fishermen Societies, Balasingam, said, “Within the Vadamaradchi east, we have 15 Unions of Fishermen Societies. It covers the coast from Manatkadu to Nallathanneerthoduvai, but now this fishing area is restricted from Vaththirayan to Chundikulam because of continuous Sri Lankan military attacks on our community. We displaced from our own villages with empty hands immediately after SLA launched heavy attack on our villages. We lost all of our valuable fishing equipments. Now we fish with very few equipment. Recently, Aseervatham, a father of four children who was going to sea was killed in an artillery attack by the Sri Lankan Navy on Vaththirayan village. Although the fishermen have been killed, disappeared and harassed by the Sri Lankan Navy in the sea and land they continue to go sea for fishing to their families.”
13 September 2007
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Europe which has a total population of 800 million is made up of 45 language based nation states. South Asia which has a total population of one billion, (1000 million) is comprised of four states. Who is preventing and therefore benefiting by limiting new nation-states in South Asia?
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