Leaving Vanni
Benjamin Dix, author of Vanni: A Family’s Struggle through the Sri Lankan Conflict, on the harrowing experience of leaving Sri Lanka behind
At the start of September 2008 it was clear that the UN was going to evacuate from Vanni. We had been scaling down our operations to assist vulnerable people due to the rapidly increasing security situation. The town of Kilinochchi (the Tamil Tiger de facto capital) was under fire from the encroaching Sri Lankan army, and my colleagues and I were spending more and more time in our bunkers waiting for a lull in the fighting.
Tamil civilians had been chanting outside our gates, pleading with us not to leave, as we were an independent witness to the atrocities that were expected to come after our departure. Although we could not effectively assist the civilians in that situation, we deeply understood that our mere presence as independent, international witnesses was hugely important.
My Tamil staff was seeking emotional advice about what they should do: leave with us in the evacuation and continue working and financially supporting their families stuck in Vanni (only UN staff would be on the convoy), or stay behind with their families and face the conflict. The decisions were excruciatingly painful to make and almost impossible to advise.
At 10 a.m. on the morning of September 16, 2008, we gathered in the World Food Programme compound on the outskirts of Kilinochchi and received our security briefing for the evacuation. The mood was sombre; we were abandoning our friends and colleagues, we were nervous, and we were about to drive through an active conflict zone with warring parties on either side of the road that might like to violently disrupt the convoy for military or political gain.
I remember getting into my car, wearing a flak jacket and helmet, with tears streaming down my face; I was exhausted, scared, and ashamed at the realisation that I was leaving the place I’d called home for the past four years and driving through a crowd of civilians wearing rubber sandals and saris, who were screaming at us not to leave.
As we drove along the road, in a convoy of twelve UN land cruisers, with blue lights flashing and radio chatter between the vehicles, we passed through a fresh air attack. The charred body of a man sat in the seat of his tractor, trees were on fire around it, and there was a hole in the road where the shell had hit. And we drove through the debris and out to safety, leaving 400,000 people to their fate behind us – 70,000 of which died in the following eight months.
I resigned, in shame, from the UN the following day and returned to my parents’ home in southern England. For the following few years I struggled with the sense of abandonment of my friends and colleagues in Sri Lanka and realised that I wanted to tell this story in the medium of a graphic novel. Seven years later, here it is.
Vanni: A Family’s Struggle through the Sri Lankan Conflict is now available. Learn more at http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08497-8.html Save 30% with code NR18.
