Vanni journalist’s photos get UN recognition

The UN has chosen photos taken by a leading Tamil journalist in Vanni for a special report on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka.

Photographs by photojournalist Kanapathipillai Kumanan have been published in a report titled ‘Legacy of Enforced Disappearances Haunts Sri Lanka’ released on 21 May by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The report focus’ on the experiences of activists of the North-East Association of the Relatives of the Enforced Disappearances (ARED). They are engaged in Sri Lanka’s longest struggle aimed at finding tens of thousands of relatives who were forcibly disappeared during the war and its aftermath.

The report was issued in parallel with another special OHCHR report, which describes the lack of response at the local level with regard to enforced disappearances.

“Perhaps, I might be able to see my son again, or at the very least, I might get a chance to find out where he has been buried,” the UN report quoted a 72-year-old mother, who has been looking for her forcibly disappeared son since 2009.

Looking for her loved ones in refugee camps and mass graves along with mothers and wives of the forcibly disappeared, she has been leading the peaceful protest which has completed 2,650 days. “Where are our children? Where are our husbands,” she asks the authorities.

Although the civil war in Sri Lanka came to an end 15 years ago, relatives of the forcibly disappeared have been engaged in an endless struggle seeking truth and justice for their beloved. Even after one and a half decades, they have not received a clue about the fate of their loved ones.

Kumanan, whose photographs published in ‘Legacy of Enforced Disappearances Haunts Sri Lanka,’ has been reporting from Vanni for several years, with particular attention to the people affected by the war.

In addition to the threats posed by defence forces personnel, Kumanan has faced other threats during his reporting. Three years ago, he and his colleague Shanmugam Thavaseelan were severely assaulted after they exposed an illegal timber racket.

As with many acts of violence against Vanni journalists, justice is yet be delivered for the crime.