Ruki Fernando’s personal impressions of Sri Lankan refugees in India:
“Are we the ones to bear this shame, are they the sacrifice”
I remembered John Denver’s passionate song dedicated to the refugees called “Fallen leaves”, as I sat in the Chennai airport, trying to make sense of what I had seen and heard and my own feelings, recalling my visit to Sri Lankans who had fled to India in fear of their lives and live in camps as refugees. One of the lines from the song that kept coming back to me was what I had put as the title to this reflection.
At the airport, I myself felt a bit of a refugee, having come to the airport from an overnight bus. It had not been an easy journey, traveling by a night train, and spending the day at the store house that now serves as a home to 26 families, and then taking an overnight bus back, straight to the airport. And several other train, bus and auto rides in between. But I guess the difficulties in my journey pales when compared to the journeys that the people I met had undertaken, on makeshift boats, often overcrowded. Mine had certainly been a journey by choice, taking advantage of attending a conference in Chennai, while they had not much choice in undertaking the journey, the choice of fleeing to India and remaining in Sri Lanka having being one of life or death.
Read the rest of his report here.
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