FLEEING LANKA

As the economic crisis deepens, Tamils in Sri Lanka’s Northern and Eastern Provinces are looking to migrate to India

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

At Pesalai, a fishing village in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district, 59-year-old Sebamalai Cruz and his wife, Sebamalai Anthonika, are mending fishing nets. Waves lash the shore as Anthonika tells Cruz about the long queue at Sathosa, the government’s concessionary retail chain. “How can we live here without food and fuel? How will we support our grandchildren?” she asks, staring at the sea. “Wait,” replies Cruz, “there will be a way out.”

But Anthonika is not convinced. She talks about an officer of the Sri Lankan navy who recently asked her if the family was planning to leave for India as refugees. “I told him that I don’t mind doing so even if we get arrested and are sent to prison,” Anthonika tells THE WEEK. “Everything is expensive here. There is no diesel for our boats to go to sea.”

The Sri Lankan navy has set up checkpoints along the Mannar coast to keep tabs on boats putting out to sea. “They are watching us 24x7,” says Jascintha Cruz, Anthonika’s 51-year-old neighbour who is also struggling to make ends meet. “The cost of one-kilo sugar is LKR 190 now. I used to have tea every morning. First, I stopped buying milk powder, as it became expensive. Now, sugar is also expensive. So I have black tea without sugar. With the ever-increasing prices, the day I stop having tea altogether does not seem very far.”

What is the way out? “What else, we should go to India,” says Jascintha.