The Navy rescued three Tamil families with their toddlers and teenage children accompanied by a male adult in the Eastern seas off Pulmudai in the wee hours of Wednesday. The group numbering 13 which includes 8 males and 5 females, had been fleeing from LTTE captivity in Mullaitivu on board a fibre glass dinghy flying a white flag for protection, evading the hawkish eyes of the LTTE cadres on the prowl, when they were encountered by the naval personnel who are exclusively deployed in the Northern seas as a part of the Navy’s humanitarian mission to rescue the fleeing innocent Tamil civilians, the Navy said.
The first family consisted of a father aged 47 and his two teenage children -a son aged 13 and a daughter aged 18. The second family comprised of two young parents -a father and a mother, both aged 22- and their baby son who is just 02 years of age. They were also accompanying their teenage brother aged 15 who was living with them for protection. The third family, which also consisted of young parents, a father and a mother aged 29 and 23 respectively, have two young daughters, of whom one is just five years and the other is barely one and half years of age.
The teenagers in the group, who seem to show a keen interest in pursuing their education uninterrupted for a brighter future, reticently unfolded their self-suppressed wishes with the friendly naval personnel, with whom they quickly struck a cordial relationship since many of them were akin to their elder brothers and sisters.
They revealed that many of their unfortunate friends, having been forcibly conscripted, are languishing under the LTTE clutches and are deprived of their rightful education which, they believe, the only way of getting out of the wide-spread chimera of illusion, which is based on unreal and false promises propagated by the terror outfit to brainwash the naïve and the young.
Having set foot in the safe hands in the liberated areas where many more of their counterparts are savouring the freedom, which is rightfully due to youth and teenagers, they expressed great relief for the first time in their lives for they can now see for themselves what it feels like to be really liberated from terror. The young parents, watching over their toddlers who had found company in the caring women in blue in the Navy, claim that they feel all their hopes to be among their relatives with happiness have been dashed by the tyrannical LTTE outfit.
Therefore, they say, they undertook this risky escapade in order to give their beloved youngsters a better tomorrow, which they claim, had been denied to them for decades. They expressed their gratitude to the Navy for coming into their rescue at an hour when even the darkness engulfing the unfriendly waters was against them, the Navy said.
(Courtesy : Daily Mirror )