The boat of Rohingya asylum seekers fleeing persecution from Myanmar had turned up on the 19th of December 2024 near the shores of Mullivaikkal
Mullivaikkal is a remote coastal village in the Northern district of Mullaitivu in Sri Lanka and its ethnic composition is predominantly Tamil. It has become significant as it’s where Sri Lanka’s three-decade long civil war came to a bloody end in 2009, with hundreds of thousands still unaccounted.
Those who surrendered to the Army in Mullivaikkal on the last days of the war are alleged to have been killed or disappeared. The whole of Mullivaikkal village and Mullaitivu district were displaced for several months and were detained behind barbed wired detention camps.
Mullivaikkal is also where Tamils gather in large numbers every year on the 18th May (the day the war ended) remembering, grieving and demanding justice for wartime atrocities they suffered. It has led to terms such as “Mullivaikkal Tamil Genocide remembrance week” etc., by some Tamils.
It is near the shores of Mullivaikkal that a boat with Rohingya asylum seekers fleeing persecution from Myanmar had turned up on the 19th December 2024. Theepan and other fishermen in Mullivaikkal were amongst the first to sight the boat and assist them.
They had gone to the boat using Theepan’s small fishing boat and noticed lots of people on the boat, including children. Only a few men were standing and the others were lying down. They had also noticed vomit and blood. They couldn’t understand each other due to language barriers, but several in the boat had shouted the word “hospital”.
Theepan says he felt those on the boat, especially children, wanted him to bring them ashore. He also said he and most villagers wanted to bring those on the boat ashore and take care of them. He said he could have brought them all ashore in his boat, about 10 at a time. But he was worried about legal consequences.
Baskaran was another fisherman from Mullaitivu who had visited the Rohingyas in the boat and both he and Theepan had asked the Navy to bring the people ashore, but that Navy officers said they didn’t have permission from their seniors and relevant authorities to do so. However, Theepan had taken a doctor, two Public Health Inspectors and Navy officers in their boat to visit the boat with asylum seekers. An ambulance had come to the site, but was never used as no one on the boat was brought ashore.
The fishermen had also taken glucose, food and drinking water for those in the boat. According to them, these were gratefully accepted by those on the boat who appeared to be starving. Theepan, with some others, had made about 20 trips from the shore to the boat with Rohingyas.
As the news spread, people from afar also started to bring food. A group from Puthukkudiyiruppu had brought food and Theepan had taken these by boat and handed them over even after the Navy had started to escort the boat towards Trincomalee in the evening.
Theepan and Baskaran had reservations about Indian trawlers which were disrupting their livelihoods, but were exceptionally welcoming and supportive towards Rohingyas who had come by boat, based on belief they were fleeing persecution and in need of help.
Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees everyone the right to seek asylum and international customary law principles prohibit returning of those having a well-founded fear of persecution to their place of origin.
Theepan, Baskaran and local people see the Rohingya as people fleeing persecution and seeking protection. They categorically state that the government should take care of them. When asked about the government minister’s fears about 100,000 people coming, Baskaran replied that those who come to protect their lives from anywhere must be helped.
Theepan said Mullivaikkal villagers could accommodate and feed them, but the government will have to attend to other needs including health care. They recalled their own painful wartime experiences of trying to escape bombing, shelling, being in bunkers, displacement, starvation and said their experiences help them understand the plight of Rohingyas and motivates them to empathise and help the Rohingyas who have come to Sri Lanka. Local journalists who had visited the boat and gave sympathetic coverage also remembered their own wartime experiences.
Mullivaikkal people’s sensitivity, kindness and willingness to welcome and help strangers fleeing persecution who have come to their shoes could be an example for government politicians, state officials and all citizens to follow.
