the story

1983-2009

The Sri Lankan Civil War was rooted in deep ethnic tensions between the Tamil and Sinhalese population. When Sri Lanka gained its independence from Great Britain in 1948, the country needed to form a new identity. The majority of the country’s population were Sinhalese, occupying the southern region of the country, while the minority were Tamils, occupying the North. As Sri Lanka began developing its identity, more and more Tamil-friendly policies and laws were stripped. Feeling oppressed by a Sinhalese majority government, the Tamil population first sought to gain more of a voice in the political race but, as tensions rose, demanded more. A Tamil militant group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam took advantage of this unrest and began to fight back against the Sri Lankan government. Their mission was to create a Tamil country of Eelam in the North East region of Sri Lanka, using suicide bombings and massacres to achieve their goal, igniting the start of the deadly civil war that consumed Sri Lanka for nearly a quarter of a century.