Word: vavuniya
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...will only know how wonderful walking on the road like this feels if you have gone through what we have." Dharmeshwaran, 30, was walking toward Vavuniya, a town in the north of Sri Lanka and a journey of about 18 miles (30km) from Menik Farm, the camp for displaced persons where he and his family have been detained for about seven months. They were among the 225,000 to 280,000 people who were held in several detention camps after fleeing the fighting in the last stages of the 26-year-long war between the Sri Lankan Army...
...have been reborn," Dharmeswaran says. He is visibly relieved, but his freedom is not total. Those who leave the camps will have to return within the time period they indicated before going, and they must give details of where they are staying to camp administrators. Dharmeshwaran went to Vavuniya to find a temporary job. "I can earn some money when I get back," he says. The camps provide basic supplies, but "if we want to buy anything extra it is very expensive." Others had come out to seek medical treatment, locate relatives or meet family members in government run rehabilitation...
Caught between the insurgent and counterinsurgent campaigns, terrified citizens can hardly remember the gentle ways that characterized Sri Lanka for decades. "Today I am afraid to smile at anyone on the street," says Vallipuram Pararajasingham, a doctor in northern Vavuniya. In the south, people are too frightened even to venture into the streets. "You find television newscasters afraid to work, lawyers afraid to attend bar meetings, and M.P.s who resign after threats," says Wickremasinghe. "Everyone is living in a psychosis of fear...
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