Ishanka Singha Arachchi, in Groundviews, 9 November 2025, where thr title runs thus: A Southern Woman’s Endless Search for Justice …… with highlighting emphasis added by The Editor, Thuppahi.
The story of the women of the South, who have been struggling for justice for their forcibly disappeared loved ones for 36 long years, remains one of the most tragic chapters in Sri Lanka’s history. Despite countless obstacles, shifting political tides and the indifference of successive governments, their fight for truth and accountability continues with unwavering determination.
These women, now frail with age, still carry photographs of their missing sons, husbands and brothers, walking from one government office to another, from one protest to the next, demanding answers that never come.
They now place renewed hope in the NPP government, believing that it will finally deliver justice and fairness for those who were killed or forcibly disappeared during the violence of the past.
Among these courageous women is 72 year-old S.M. Premasili, whose story mirrors that of thousands of others – a wife who has spent decades searching for her husband, refusing to forget, refusing to give up. Her voice, like those of so many other women of the South, continues to echo through the silence of a nation still struggling to confront its past.
“Suddenly, the army broke into the house. My two sons, daughter, husband and I were getting ready to eat and sleep. They took my husband and me out of the house and brought us to a barrack. They put us into a cab. After a while, they stopped at a forest clearing and blindfolded us with pieces of cloth. They made us sit down. I felt that my husband was also near me. Then they beat him very badly. I could hear him shouting. They kept asking him to tell them where the JVP members were. He said he didn’t know. When I said no, they beat me too. They pulled me up by my legs and hung me,” Premasili said.
Premasili came to Colombo from Hambantota at the invitation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Among many other brave women, she stood out as someone who tried to reflect on how she had barely survived the torture chambers during the 1988-89 season of fear, enduring immense suffering. She remained strong because of the pain she had already endured.
She lived in the village of Mamadala with her husband and three children. They made a living cultivating rice. But their lives were shattered when on November 20, 1989 a group of soldiers stormed their home and took her and her husband, 40 year-old K.H. Premadasa, an agricultural labourer. Premasili, who was 36 years old at the time, has not heard from her husband since that day.
“They beat me badly with hose pipes. It hurt so much but what could I do? I didn’t even realise that I was a woman anymore. They beat me mercilessly. Then they made me sit next to my husband. One of them touched my chest. I asked, ‘Do you have sisters, sir?’ After that, I don’t know where they took me. They harassed me until nightfall. I couldn’t see anything because my eyes were blindfolded. I lost consciousness,” Premasili said.
The next morning, she regained consciousness. She looked around to see where her husband was but he was nowhere to be seen. The blindfold covering her eyes was made from the shirt he had been wearing.
Premasili was brought to the Hambantota army camp where she had to endure further torture. “I was hung up by my two big fingers. They beat me really hard. They kept asking about the JVP members.”
Unable to bear the pain, Premasili began to name several people who had already died in her village.
Suspects who were tortured and interrogated were kept in a building with a tin roof during the day. At night, Premasili and several other young girls who had been arrested were taken to a nearby tourist bungalow where they were shackled.
Registration with the ICRC
Premasili was later handed over to the Hambantota police along with three other young girls who had been held in the camp. This was in December 1989. Representatives of the ICRC arrived to record their details and officially register them as detainees. Many of those who were registered with the ICRC were fortunate enough to survive because of that documentation. However, even among registered detainees, there were reports of killings and disappearances.
A case was filed against Premasili, who spent five months in the Hambantota police cell, on charges of sedition. She was released later from the case that had been filed against her.
“When I was released, my three children were scattered. There was nothing proper to eat or drink. It was not a time when anyone dared to help. Everyone was afraid. When the children needed food or water, they couldn’t even ask for it from the neighbours. If someone gave them something, they would eat it,” she said.
She filed a fundamental rights case in court over her husband’s disappearance and the injustice done to her. However, she had to go abroad for employment to secure a future for her three children. During that time, the case she filed was dismissed on the grounds that there was no complainant.
In 1999, when the government announced compensation for the families of the disappeared, Premasili went to the Hungama Police Station to lodge a complaint about her husband’s disappearance.
“The person who was supposed to write the complaint was a police constable who couldn’t write it properly. He wanted to come to the village to take more details. Because I rejected his advances he took revenge by writing the complaint in a way that made it impossible for me to receive compensation,” Premasili said.
The man who had broken into Premasili’s home with the army team was also her neighbour in the village. She had survived, only to live next to those who had caused her such pain.
Justice and compensation
Thousands of other women like Premasili, who wears a necklace with a picture of her beloved husband, continue to demand justice, fairness and full compensation.
Although a death certificate and some money were initially provided as compensation in 1996, some families have still not received the funds. In 2019, Rs. 500 million was allocated, providing an allowance of Rs. 6,000 per victim family. Of this only Rs. 700,000 was spent and only 153 families received the allowance.
In 2024, Rs. 1,000 million was intended to be distributed among 5,000 victim families but only 4,000 families received the money. In the 2025 budget, Rs. 16 million has been allocated so that each victim family would receive Rs. 200,000.
The struggle of mothers in the South, who have been demanding justice and fairness for their loved ones for nearly four decades, has suffered setbacks due to politicians and some organizations using the cause to advance their own agendas.
Will investigations finally begin and will the perpetrators ever be held accountable? Will justice be served for the forcibly disappeared and the murdered? The country continues to wait and see.
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