Thread by @DrSelvarajah

#BLACKJULY - anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in #Sri Lanka during July 1983. 38 years ago to this day. Over seven days, mainly #Sinhala mobs attacked, burned, looted, and killed #Tamil targets. My family and I were one of those affected 1/n…..

I was 5 years old at that time, my sister 4 and my brother 3. My family and I were first hand witnesses to this atrocity and were lucky to escape with our lives from Colombo. Our house was burnt along with our all of our possessions. 2/n..

This was the trigger for the war lasting for decades killing more than 200,000 Tamils including my friends and family, result in upheaval for our community and lifelong scars for current and future generations destroying our way of life and homeland. 3/n….

We were in hiding for 5 days with the first 2 days with a kind Sinhalese neighbour. But this neighbour could no longer harbour us as Govt backed Sinhala mobs were going around from house to house searching for Tamils. 4/n…

As a 5 year old, I have recollections of peeking through the closed window on to an empty street often filled with sudden burst of noises. I didn’t know what that was at the time. Later I found out it was the noises of the Tamils burnt the alive encapsulated in car tyres. 5/n…

We are forever grateful for our Sinhala neighbour. It gave me my lifelong belief that the Tamil struggle was never against the Sinhala people but against a genocidal state driven by racist, supremacist ideology. Some amongst them were consumed by religious & racial ideology. 6/n.

We then sought asylum with a friend who worked for Sri Lankan customs. He another 100+Tamils in his house with us all cramped into rooms not being able to come out. This kind man used his influence to smuggle us into a cargo ship. He risked his life to save us. 7/n..

I have strong memories of being a deep hole amongst the containers and only coming out to complete our morning duties in an open ocean. I remember peering up to see daylight. This ordeal lasted for 5 days. We only had one loaf of bread per day to eat for the 5 of us. 8/n..

I remember the panic my parents felt in trying to protect their young kids. As a father to a 6 and 10 years old now, and being similar age to my parents, I can only now begin to imagine what they must have felt and how they would have struggled to keep us safe and alive. 9/n…

I remember the relief we all felt when we landed in Jaffna. We were amongst people who no longer wanted to harm us because of my ethnicity, language, culture. I remember hearing the voices of energised Tamil youths deciding we should forge our own path to liberation. 10/n…

I wrote down about about these experiences for a school essay as a 6 year old. Today, I thought I would write a short entry after 38 years. Here is the Wikipedia entry. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_July 11/11