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VI. Accounts of Karuna Group: Abductions and Forced Recruitment

Below are several accounts provided to Human Rights Watch from parents and witnesses of abductions attributed to the Karuna group in 2006.  Certain specific information concerning these cases, such as names, places, and dates, has been removed due to security concerns.

Case 1 — Boy and Young Man in Batticaloa District, May

In May 2006 Karuna forces abducted a boy and a young man from a village in Batticaloa district.  Both were subsequently seen by their families in the custody of the Karuna group.

The mother of the young man told Human Rights Watch that her son might have been targeted because the LTTE had abducted another of her sons in 2001.  She explained how the May 2006 abduction took place:

Around 8 p.m. my son was having dinner behind the house in our backyard with me and my daughter. A few people entered the compound and surrounded us. Two men went directly to the main yard while two men turned around the house and went to the backyard where we were eating. They took my son. More people were waiting outside our compound. I think they were a total of 10. They all wore Sri Lankan army uniforms and were masked. There were no ranks or insignia visible on their uniforms. I grabbed the leg of one of the assailants and I begged him not to take my son away. He kicked me violently. One of them said, “We are investigating your son and once cleared we will release him.” They said that in Tamil. They were all armed with rifles. I don’t know what kind. They belonged to the Karuna group.

They didn’t come on vehicle. They walked in and left the same way. We followed them for a while but at some point they turned right onto a smaller lane and we stopped.⁸²

According to the mother, she begged the Karuna group members not to take her son.  “You gave a son to the LTTE, so you have to give a son to us,” she said one of the men replied.

The family reported the abduction at the police station in Valaichchenai.  A police officer opened a file and took a few notes, the mother said.  He asked a few questions and provided the family with the complaint number.  One month later, the family received the police report, which was inspected by Human Rights Watch.  According to the family, however, the police have done nothing since.

After the abduction, the family went three or four times to the TMVP office in Karapola in the Welikanda area.  On the final visit, officials in the office agreed to set up a meeting in two weeks for the parents to see their son.

About two weeks later, the parents were allowed to see their son in what the mother called “a special house where parents can meet their abducted children.”  She explained,

The Karunas took us to a house in Karapola where we saw our son….  My son told us, “I am not allowed to leave. I have to stay.”  He was wearing a Sri Lankan army uniform and he had a weapon. He added, “I can’t escape from here.”  We stayed three hours with him, from noon to 3 p.m.

The family saw their son two more times after that when he came home for a visit together with the Karuna group members who had abducted him.  They were all armed and wearing Sri Lankan army uniforms, the mother said.  Her son seemed changed:

My son was another person. His behavior had changed. His way of speaking was different too. He talked a lot about politics. At some point, he was alone with me and I suddenly retrieved my boy.  He sounded normal without the other guys around.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed the mother of the boy who was abducted from the same village that day, although she did not witness the abduction.  “It was night around 9 p.m.,” she said.  “I was home, I didn’t hear anything.  Then I heard noise and people crying.”⁸³

The mother said she also reported the case to the Valaichchenai police, where the police opened a file but did not provide the complaint number.  “The police didn’t ask any questions, didn’t ask for a description of my son or for a photo,” she said.

The boy’s mother went with other families of abducted boys and young men from the area to the TMVP office in Karopola, where she saw her abducted son.  The office is within eyesight of an army base and police station, she said.

After that, her son visited her at home on two occasions.  He wore plain clothes but was armed both times, she said.  “He had changed, he was not the same,” she explained. “He said he was supporting Karuna now.  But he told me that he would come home if he could.”

Case 2 — Eight Boys and Young Men in Batticaloa District, June

In June Karuna forces abducted eight boys and young men from a village in the Batticaloa district.  Human Rights Watch interviewed four of the families with a son abducted that day.  They gave consistent testimony about the abductions and the parents’ efforts to get their children back, including visits to Karuna camps.  According to three of the families, Sri Lankan army soldiers had come to the village on the morning of the abductions, gathering and photographing seven boys and young men, four of whom were later abducted by the Karuna group.  Whether the Sri Lankan military was directly cooperating with the Karuna group by identifying potential abductees or was conducting regular operations to identify LTTE members or supporters remains unclear.

The mother of one of the abducted young men explained how Sri Lankan army soldiers came to the village around 10 a.m., gathered a group of boys and young men in a nearby field, and took their photographs:

They rounded up our children, took them to a field a few yards away, kept them there and took pictures of the kids. They also asked for the IDs of the kids. There were a lot of soldiers surrounding the whole area. They came on army trucks. They came house to house and took our children only, not the parents. Then they took them to the field nearby. I was afraid that they were in the process of apprehending the kids. Seven kids were taken to the field by the soldiers. Four of these seven kids were kidnapped [by Karuna forces] that same night. The soldiers just said, “We want to take photos of the kids and then they will be allowed to go.” They asked for the IDs. They ordered the parents not to come. A soldier said, “We are going to take the photos to protect your kids. Karunas won’t kidnap your children now.” They had a small camera. There were many soldiers. I can’t say how many, maybe 200. Then the kids were abducted the same night.⁸⁴

According to the young man’s father, Karuna forces arrived in the village around 11 p.m. that night.  They were wearing Sri Lankan army uniforms and had black masks.  They spoke Tamil and he knew they belonged to the Karuna group because he later visited his abducted son in a Karuna camp.  He explained,

I saw everything, I was there.  I tried to stop it from happening but the kidnappers said they would shoot me.  My son was crying.  My wife tried to stop them too but they pushed her back.⁸⁵

The parents of the abducted boys and young men made several trips to visit their sons in Karuna camps in the Welikanda area, the mother and father said.  To get there they took a bus to the Sewanpitiya junction with the main A11 road, where there is a checkpoint with army and police.  The visiting parents had to give their names to the soldiers posted there, who informed the Karuna group that the parents were on their way.  Then they took trishaws (motorcycle taxis) for two or three miles to the Karuna camp.  Karuna forces speaking Tamil and wearing green Sri Lanka army uniforms were in the area, they said.

According to the mother, she saw her son on the third trip.  He was at a different camp from the seven other boys and young men with whom he had been abducted.  “We informed the guards at the gate and we waited an hour at the entrance, but inside the camp, in a place near the jungle,” she said.  “My son was wearing a Sri Lankan army uniform and he had a weapon.  He cried when he saw me.” 

Two days after the abduction, the father went to the Eravur police station to report the case.  The police opened a file, he said, but they refused to provide a complaint number.  “When Karunas capture your children, you come here to complain, but when the LTTE capture them, you never come,” the father said a police officer remarked.

The mother of a boy abducted that day, interviewed separately, gave a similar account of the day’s events, from the visit of the Sri Lankan army to the Karuna abductions that night:

The night of the abduction, we were sitting behind the house when suddenly around 1 a.m. armed guys wearing Sri Lankan army uniforms showed up. We were surrounded by seven or eight armed men. I don’t know how they came, I didn’t hear anything.

The same day, but in the morning at 10 a.m., the army came, surrounded the area, and took our kids to a field just near the house on the other side of the path.  They took my son to the field. They had come on vehicles. They asked the kids to come with their IDs. The soldiers were speaking broken Tamil. They said, “No parents, only boys.” They took seven boys to the field and took their pictures. That same night, four of these seven kids were kidnapped. There were 20 army soldiers. I am pretty sure of the number. They came in one car and one tractor. They freed the kids and left.

The guys who showed up the same night wore the same uniforms as the soldiers in the morning but they were masked and they spoke perfect Tamil. There were seven or eight and they were armed. We tried to stop them from taking the kids but they pushed us back and kicked us. My son was crying. Eight kids from the area were abducted that night.⁸⁶

Shortly thereafter, the families of the abducted boys and young men went to the Eravur police station, the mother said. She was not present in the police station, but her husband explained to her what took place:

One police officer said that he knew about the abduction.  The police asked for the names of those responsible. My husband said he didn’t know the names but he knew they were Karunas. He recognized some of them. My husband knows this area very well. When the LTTE was here he performed some work for them. He knows the guys who were with the LTTE at the time and who are with the Karunas now. The police didn’t give the complaint number and they have done nothing since.

The mother was among the group of parents who subsequently visited their sons in the Karuna camps.  “I went there and I saw my son three times,” she said.  “He was armed and was wearing a Sri Lankan army uniform.”

According to the mother, the first time she saw her son was in the Karopola camp near Welikanda.  To get there, the parents took a bus to a road junction near Welikanda but she did not remember the name. A Sri Lankan army checkpoint is at the junction she said, and the leader of the families’ group gave the soldiers the names of the boys and young men with whom they wanted to visit. The army let the parents pass and they took trishaws to the camp.  For the second visit, this mother’s son was at what she called the Theevuchenai camp, near Welikanda.

“He was very sad when I saw him,” the mother said.  “He had lost weight.”  He told her that he receives a monthly salary that he will send home.  The family received two postal orders from their son worth 5,000 rupees (US$46).

The father of another young man abducted that day also corroborated the testimony of the other families, and provided additional details about visits to the Karuna camp.

Between 25 and 30 men from the Karuna group in Sri Lankan army uniforms surrounded the area where his family lives around 10 p.m., he said.  They were not masked but were wearing black bandanas, and they were armed with rifles, which the father identified as either T 56 or AK 47 assault rifles. One or two of the men had submachine guns, he said. All of them spoke Tamil.⁸⁷

The men rounded up eight boys and young men and took them towards the main road. The father followed them to the road, where one of the Karuna group members told him that the boys were under suspicion of helping the LTTE and therefore under investigation.  They would be returned soon, he said.  They walked away with the eight boys.

Shortly after the abduction, the father reported the crime at the police station in nearby Eravur. The police took notes and opened a file, the father said, but they refused to provide the family with the complaint number.

Six weeks later, the family heard a rumor that their abducted son was in a Karuna camp in Karopola, near Welikanda.  The father called a friend who lived in that area, asking that person to inquire.  Three days later the friend called back to say the man’s son was there.  The father described for Human Rights Watch how he and members of the other families with abducted children went looking for their sons:

We took a bus to Sewanpitiya and then once there a trishaw to Karapola. First there is an army camp and then the Karuna camp. It’s a government-controlled area. The trishaw driver knew the place perfectly. It is located three miles from Sewanpitiya and it cost us 30 rupees per person.

He continued,

We went to the gate. There were Karuna guys at the gate, some in uniform and some in plain clothes. One of them said, “What are you doing here? Why did you come?” I replied, “I want to see my son.” “Wait, wait,” they said and brought two chairs.  They then brought food and water. We waited from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. We then entered the camp. There were people in plainclothes inside. We were not far from the gate of the camp and they brought our children.

My son was wearing a Sri Lankan army uniform.  He had a gun and a rocket propelled grenade launcher. The seven other boys were like my son, wearing an army uniform and armed. My son told me he was all right there and that I should not worry. I was not alone with my son. Karuna people were all around us. He looked very sad. The meeting lasted for two hours.

The father visited his son twice after that.  During the first visit, he saw that his son had been wounded. “His ear and his leg were black,” the father said.  “He said that a mine had exploded near him during a fight and that his friend next to him had been killed and he had been wounded.”  The young man’s mother tried to visit twice but the Karuna group members at the camp said her son was not there. 

According to the father, he and the parents of four other abductees received 5,000 rupees each from their sons by postal order.

The family recognized the men who abducted their son but did not know their names.  “They were with the LTTE before,” the young man’s mother said.⁸⁸

The mother and father said this was the second time a son had been abducted by an armed group, the LTTE having captured an older son two years before.  The son abducted in June 2006 had also been abducted by the LTTE in 2005, the father said, but released.

Case 3 — Thirteen Boys and Young Men in Batticaloa District, June

In June Karuna forces abducted 13 boys and young men from a village in the Batticaloa district.  Human Rights Watch spoke separately with four families who had sons abducted that day.  They gave consistent testimony on how between 10 and 15 Karuna group members, armed and mostly in Sri Lankan army uniforms, detained the boys and young men in a nearby shop, ostensibly for “investigation.”  The shop was across the street from an army post and some of the parents pleaded with the soldiers to intervene.  Several soldiers spoke with the Karuna group members but the soldiers took no effective action to stop the abduction from taking place.  Many of the family members subsequently visited their abducted children in a Karuna camp.

According to the father of a boy abducted that day, the incident began around 9 a.m., when four armed Karuna group members came to his home.  He explained,

They said there was a meeting and they asked my son to come. He went with them. The four men who came to our house wore Sri Lankan army uniforms and had caps on their heads but were not masked. They were armed with rifles. They spoke Tamil. They belong to the Karuna group. My son refused to go and they took him by force. My son is a student, grade 9.  I tried to go with them, to follow them but they didn’t let me do that. They said that the parents could not come and they pushed me back.

There were a lot of these same guys that day in the village. We later heard that many kids in the village had been abducted that day. If we had known, we would have hidden him somewhere.⁸⁹

The man’s wife went to the Valaichchenai police station to report the crime. The police opened a file, the father said, but they did not ask for a photograph or any identification for his son. “They did ask how tall he was, his hair color, what he was wearing,” he said.  “They didn’t give us the complaint number. They haven’t done anything since. They didn’t even bother to come here to investigate.”

A few days later, the boy’s parents heard that the Karuna group was holding their son in a camp in Mutugalla near Welikanda.  The father went there a few days after the abduction.   He explained,

The Karuna camp is located near a Sri Lankan army camp. I took a bus from Valaichchenai to Welikanda and then another bus from Welikanda to Mutugalla. In Welikanda there was an army checkpoint and they checked my ID….The camp is guarded by armed men wearing Sri Lankan army uniforms and speaking Tamil. There is no sign outside.

The first time I couldn’t see my son. I waited outside the camp but I didn’t see him. They didn’t bring him and I went home. One month later, I came back to the same camp in Mutugalla. There is a special place close to the camps to meet those who have been abducted. I waited there a little bit and they brought my son. I saw him. He looked sad. He wore plainclothes and was not armed.

The father made this trip to the camp in Mutugalla three times, he said.  He also received two months of salary from his son, totaling 12,000 rupees (US$112).  The son gave the money to his father directly when they met.

Human Rights Watch interviewed the family of a young man also abducted that day.  His older brother provided consistent testimony on how the Karuna group abducted the 13 boys and held them in the shop, as well as the involvement of Sri Lankan soldiers from a base across the street:

When [my brother] was coming back from fishing that day, he heard that boys had been kidnapped in the village. He went home very fast but he was kidnapped in front of the house on his way home. They were six guys who said that they needed him for an investigation and took him. They were between 25 and 30 years old. They were wearing plainclothes but they were armed. They spoke Tamil. They took my brother to a house nearby. My brother didn’t try to resist. My parents were not home when it happened. I decided to follow my brother and the kidnappers.

The kidnappers took all the kids they captured to the shop on the main road. When I reached the shop, I saw the parents of the other kidnapped kids around. They were looking for their children. Thirteen kids were kidnapped that day and were at the shop. My brother was among them. Then my mother joined me. We asked the kidnappers to release my brother. We stayed with the other parents and every hour the kidnappers said they were going to release my brother. At 5 p.m. they all left the shop and took Alamkulam road. They walked and then a van came and picked them up.⁹⁰

According to the brother, there is a Sri Lankan army camp across the street from the shop where the boys and young men were held, but the soldiers did not take any action to stop the abduction.  He told Human Rights Watch,

A few mothers of the abducted kids went to the [Sri Lankan army] camp and asked for the army’s help. Two soldiers finally came out and talked to the Karuna guys in broken Tamil. Then the soldiers told us that the Karunas said they were investigating the boys and that they would soon be released.  The soldiers said that the Karunas said the parents could go home now, it was OK.  Then the soldiers went back to the camp.

The abducted young man’s mother was one of those who tried to get the soldiers to help.  She explained her efforts:

Two soldiers came out and went to Alamkulam Road to talk to the Karuna guys. Then they went back to the camp and told us that we should not worry and that the kids were going to be released. We waited for two more hours and nothing happened. We then went to the police station.⁹¹

That evening the abducted young man’s father went to the Valaichchenai police station with a group of parents, the brother said. The police opened a file and told the parents that they should not worry because the abductees would soon be free.  The police initially refused to provide a copy of the police report but eventually did give it for a fee of 125 rupees (normally the report costs between 10 and 15 rupees, the brother said); only two parents got a copy of the police report. The family said the police have done nothing on the case since.

Two months after the abduction, the family visited the abducted young man in a Karuna camp in Mutugalla. They visited him four times in total, the brother said.

The mother of the young man claimed that she knew two men from the Karuna group responsible for the abductions that day.  She told Human Rights Watch,

I know who planned the kidnapping of the kids. Their names are [names withheld]. They are from here. [One of the men] was even here during the kidnapping, I saw him. I saw only nine or ten of the Karunas that day, but they were more than that, maybe 13. They wore t-shirts and pants and were armed. [The two men] come back here regularly. I talked to them and pleaded for my son. They refused to release him.

Human Rights Watch interviewed the mother of another young man abducted that day.  The mother has three sons, and one of them had previously volunteered to join the LTTE, which may have been why her second-oldest son was targeted for abduction by the Karuna group.  She told Human Rights Watch what she saw on the day of the abductions, including her interaction with the Sri Lankan army:

The day of the abduction, I was fishing.  I am the only breadwinner for my family. When I came back to the village, many villagers were out shouting and crying. Several children of the village had been abducted by Karuna’s guys….

I joined the other parents [at the shop] and we stayed there until 2 p.m. While there, I saw my son and I pleaded for his release. I implored the Karunas to free him. They replied they were going to investigate our kids and that they would be released after that. Thirteen boys had been abducted that day in the village and I saw them all at the shop.

At 5 p.m., Karuna guys took our kids to Alamkulam Road. A van came and picked up the boys on Alamkulam Road. A white van with tainted windows….

At some point, four Sri Lankan army soldiers came and talked to the Karunas. The soldiers then talked to us near the shop and said that the Karunas were going to investigate our children.  They added: “Don’t worry, the Karunas will release your kids after that.”⁹²

According to the mother, she went to the Welikanda area the next day to look for her son:

We went to the Karuna camp [at Mutugalla] and we saw the guys who kidnapped our children walking inside the camps. We asked for our children. They replied that they had been sent for training.  I saw a few boys who had been abducted but not my son. We waited there until 5 p.m. and we came back here at 9. There is an army camp very close to the Karuna camp there.

Between Sewanpitiya and Mutugalla are a police camp and an army camp, the mother said. Near the army camp is what she called a TMVP camp.  While the parents were waiting, soldiers came out to inquire what was going on.  She said,

The first time we went to the camp in Mutugalla, two Sri Lankan army soldiers came from the army camp within 30 minutes and asked the Karuna guys what the mothers were doing there. The Karuna guys replied that we came to visit our children. The two soldiers asked us questions and asked what happened. They were speaking Sinhala and we didn’t understand very well. They spoke in Sinhala with the Karuna members. After they spoke to the soldiers, the Karuna guys asked us to leave the camp and we left.

Two months later, the mother saw her son at the Karuna camp, and she saw him twice more after that, she said.  “I want to come home but I can’t escape,” she said he told her.  She continued, “The last time I saw him was two weeks ago. He was wearing a uniform, a Sri Lankan army green uniform, as during all my previous visits except one. Many people wore the army uniform in the camp.”

According to the mother, she has received 5,000 rupees on three occasions.

The mother of a boy taken that day said she did not witness the abduction, but she saw the armed men in the village, as well as the van that took them away. “Give me back my son!” she said she yelled at the Karuna group members before they drove away.  “Only if you give us your elder son,” she said they replied.⁹³

“These Karuna guys are from the area, they know everything about us,” the mother told Human Rights Watch.  She added, “Those responsible for the abduction are the Karunas. I know the head of this group, the one who was in charge of kidnapping the 14 kids.  His name is [name withheld]. He belongs to Karuna’s group.”

About two months later the mother reported the case to the police in Valaichchenai, who opened a file and provided her with a copy of the document, which Human Rights Watch inspected.

The police investigation led to no results, the mother said, so her husband decided to visit the Karuna camps to find their son.  In early October he took a bus to the Sewanpitiya junction on the A11 road.  At an army checkpoint there the soldiers asked where he was going. He explained that the Karuna group had abducted his child and they let him pass.  The father succeeded to see his son in a Karuna camp, and the mother visited the camp herself on two other occasions.

Case 4 —Two Cousins in Batticaloa District, June

In a joint interview, Human Rights Watch interviewed two sisters who had their sons, both young men, abducted together in June from a village in Batticaloa district.  The mother of the younger man said,

My third son was abducted with his cousin, my nephew, around 8 p.m. We were all at home, inside the house listening to the news when three armed men wearing plain clothes came. They spoke Tamil. They ordered all the children out of the house and asked the parents to stay inside, otherwise they would shoot us. They said they were going to investigate the kids and then release them. They took seven children who were present at the time, three of my sons and four of my sister’s who were home. Half an hour later, all the children came back except two, who were missing. We stayed home the rest of the night.⁹⁴

The family went looking for the abducted men at the TMVP office in Mankerni the following day.  According to the two mothers, at the office officials admitted that they were holding the young men but they had been transferred elsewhere for training.

Shortly thereafter the family reported the abductions to the police in Valaichchenai. The police opened a file and provided the complaint number.  “They didn’t ask for a photo or an ID of the kids,” the mother said.  “They asked for their height, weight and description. The police didn’t do anything since.”

About six weeks later, three members of the Karuna group brought the two young men home to visit their families for two hours, the mothers said.  “They were wearing Sri Lankan army uniforms and were armed, all of them, the five of them,” the mother said.  “At some point our two boys told us that they couldn’t escape because they would shoot them.” The group came back the next morning for another visit of about three hours.  “They said they were based in Mutugalla camp,” the mother said.

The two mothers went twice to the Mutugalla camp. The mother of the younger man explained,

There is a Sri Lankan army and a police camp near the Karuna camp in Mutugalla.  You have to pass by the army camp to reach the Karuna camp. From Sewanpitiya to Mutugalla, there is a Karuna checkpoint. We were stopped and they asked, in Tamil, where we were going. Some wore Sri Lankan army uniforms and some had plain clothes. Near the Karuna checkpoint there is a Sri Lankan army checkpoint, very close, in eye contact. Inside the camp, there is a kind of kitchen area where we could meet people nearby. The last time I went there was one month ago. I received 5,000 rupees twice from my son while visiting him.

Case 5 — Fourteen Boys and Young Men in Batticaloa District, September

On one day in September 2006 Karuna forces abducted 14 boys and young men from villages north of Batticaloa town.  Human Rights Watch visited one village where three children were taken.  The mother of the youngest abducted child said she subsequently saw her child and the other two abductees in the TMVP office in Batticaloa.

One teenage boy, a witness to the abductions, explained how a group of four boys were playing in a sandy lot when about 15 men with automatic weapons dressed in black pants and black shirts approached the children and clapped—a sign that the children should come.  In fluent Tamil the men told the children that they were needed to deliver some notices.   “When we were playing here they called us,” the boy told Human Rights Watch.  “They said which of you is going to school.  I gave them my name and my school and they said I should leave.”⁹⁵

The mother of the youngest abducted child said she tried to prevent her son from going.  “I held him by the hand and they said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take him to distribute some notices,’” she said.  “I didn’t believe them so I followed.  It was in the village.  They said, ‘Go away!’”  The men spoke fluent Tamil, she said.  “They told us they were from the Karuna group.”⁹⁶

An elderly man in the village also saw the group of armed men take the three boys away. “I followed the Karuna guys as they took them away,” he told Human Rights Watch.  “They raised their guns at me and shouted, ‘Go away!’  One man said, ‘Take me,’ and they hit him with a rifle butt.”⁹⁷

The parents of the abducted children, as well as some of the parents of the 11other boys and young men abducted from the area that day, tried to get their children back.  They reported their cases in the coming days to the International Committee of the Red Cross, SLMM, and UNICEF, and some went searching in Karuna offices and camps.

“I went to the Chenkalady camp of Karuna and they said the boys are in Batticaloa,” the mother of the youngest abducted child said.  “I went to the office [of the TMVP in Batticaloa.  I saw the children in a trishaw.  It was at the bus depot on the main road.  I saw them in a trishaw going to Batticaloa.”

The mother was too afraid to approach the children because of the Karuna men in the area, but she went to the TMVP office in Batticaloa two days later.  She told Human Rights Watch what she saw:

We saw our children on the top floor of the TMVP office.  We were three mothers of children taken from here.  The children signaled to us that we should go or they would get hit.  When we went the second time they [TMVP officials] told us to go away.  “Go to the camp at Sewanpitiya on October 24 after they finish training,” they said.  We went again and they said, “Go away.  Come again on November 5.”

This mother also reported the abduction of her son to the national Human Rights Commission and to the police in Eravur.  The police at the station were cordial, she said.  They took her information and she spoke with the officer in charge but the police have taken no action since.  “We told the police it was Karuna,” the mother said.  “We have heard nothing from them since.”

The grandmother of one of the other abducted boys said she thought the abducted children were being held in Karuna’s camp at Karapola.  Parents of two of the 14 children abducted from the area that day saw some children working as guards at the TMVP office in Batticaloa, she said.  The children said that the others were at the Karapola camp.

The grandmother said her family had not reported the case to the police because they did not believe it would do any good.⁹⁸

Case 6 — Two Boys in Batticaloa District, September

In September 2006 Karuna forces abducted two young boys from an area north of Batticaloa town.

According to the mother of the older abducted child, she went to the TMVP offices in Morakkottanchenai and Chenkalady after hearing the news.  “I also went to all five [Karuna] camps,” she said.  “They said, ‘No, he is not here.’  Then they said, ‘Come again after one month.’”  She continued, “We showed a photo and they said, “Maybe. But even if we have him we will only show him to you after one month.’”⁹⁹

Three days later the TMVP office in Batticaloa told her to come in late October, although they did not confirm that they had taken her son.

She reported the case to the police, four days after the abduction and after her fruitless search at the camps.  They took the information, she said, but treated her “like a dog”:

We reported it to the police.  They said we’ll take the complaint but we’re not going to look for them.  It was the Eravur police.  They didn’t want to take it.  We argued for two hours and finally they took it…. “We’ll record your complaint but we’ll keep it in a corner,” the police said.  They treated me like a dog…  The police say, “This is your Tamil people taking your children so talk with them.”

The mother of the younger abducted child, interviewed together with the mother of the older child, did not report her son’s abduction to the police.  “Because I’m scared,” she said.¹⁰⁰

Case 7 — Boy in Trincomalee Town, September

In September 2006 members of the Karuna group abducted a teenage boy from a shop in town.  The boy’s mother told Human Rights Watch what took place:

Karuna’s people came to our home and asked for my son. He was out that day and I told them that he had gone to work. They left. [Some days thereafter] around noon, my son went to the nearby shop, 50 meters from the house, to buy bananas. Karuna’s guys came to the shop and took him.¹⁰¹

Human Rights Watch spoke with the sister of the abducted boy, who was in the shop when the abduction took place.  She explained,

I was already in the shop when [my brother] came alone on his pushbike to buy bananas. Then two guys showed up on a motorcycle and called [him]. He replied, “I am not coming.” Then they flashed a pistol. Only one of them had a pistol, a black one he kept in his pocket.  [He] then said OK and the three of them went on the motorcycle, with [my brother] in the middle. They were wearing plain clothes and were a little bit older than [the abducted boy], but not much. They were Tamil…. I don’t know their names but they said they were from Batticaloa … I haven’t seen them since.¹⁰²

According to the mother of the abducted boy, her husband subsequently went to the TMVP office in town, where he saw his son with his legs chained.

A few days later the husband went back to the TMVP office, she said, but their son was not there.  “I then went to the office myself and asked for my son,” she said. “They replied, ‘We don’t have him. We didn’t take anybody.’ But another guy told me I’ll be able to see my son three months from now.”

The family did not report the abduction to the police, out of fear.

Case 8 — Twelve Boys and Young Men in Ampara District, October

In October Karuna forces abducted 12 boys and young men from a village in the Ampara district.  As of October 18, they had released seven of the abductees.

According to the aunt of one of the abducted young men, the abductions took place on a main road around 6 p.m.  The young man was riding home from work on a motorbike with two colleagues on another bike when they were stopped by Karuna group members with a white car and white van, both with tinted windows.  The Karuna group members took the three young men in the car and van, along with their motorbikes.  The family learned of the abduction shortly thereafter, when a witness informed them of what he had seen.

That night, the young man’s mother went to the TMVP office in Akkaraipattu to look for her son, the aunt said.  She saw a white car and white van with tinted windows leaving the office as she arrived.  Officials at the office told her to come back the following day.

The next day, the young man’s mother and other relatives returned to the TMVP office in Akkaraipattu.  Officials there told them that they were not responsible for the abduction, the aunt said.  Rather, it was another Karuna group from Welikanda commanded by a man called Bharathy.  The TMVP officials in Akkaraipattu gave the family the young man’s motorbike, which suggests that at some point he had been held at the office.  The young man’s older brother went to collect it.

Around the same time, a group of relatives of the other boys and young men abducted that day gathered outside the TMVP office to complain.  “Please release our sons!” they yelled, according to the aunt and another witness who saw the group.

According to the aunt, some of the mothers went to a Karuna camp in the Welikanda area—she did not know which one—to speak with the commander Bharathy.  She explained,

Some mothers went to Welikanda and met Bharathy.  He said he would release six of the boys after six days.  He released seven. Not our boy.  And not the other four.  My sister is there now to try and get her son back.¹⁰³

According to the aunt, Bharathy released the seven abductees only after obtaining detailed information about each family’s financial affairs, health, and work status.  The four boys and young men not released were sent for military training, she said.

Case 9 — Two Boys and a Young Man in Batticaloa District, October

On one day in October 2006, Karuna forces abducted two children and one adult in a village in Batticaloa district.  Human Rights Watch researchers arrived at the scene about three hours after the abductions had taken place.

Local residents were visibly afraid to speak and gave only cursory information.  One man, who did not want to give his name, said that armed men from the Karuna group had come that morning around 8 a.m. and taken two boys and a young man.¹⁰⁴

Human Rights Watch spoke with the distraught mother of the abducted young man.  She said that the Karuna forces had released the two boys but continued to hold her son.  Maybe they suspected him of being an LTTE supporter, she said, although this was untrue.¹⁰⁵

Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm the abductions or whether the two boys were in fact released.  While in the village, researchers observed approximately two dozen Sri Lankan soldiers patrolling the area, but it is not known if they were present when the abductions took place.

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