The Dove Keeper
Mohammed Yassin
Mohammed Yassin and his family were among the more than five thousand Muslim families expelled from the Jaffna peninsula by the Tamil Tigers in 1990. He recalls the day they were ordered to leave, the hurried journey south and the uncertainty that followed.
When he later returned to Moor Street, once the centre of Jaffna’s Muslim community, he found many houses still abandoned, part of the wider displacement of an estimated seventy-five thousand Muslims from the north. A small number of families had begun to return, and the mosque had been repaired.
Yassin received visitors with warmth. He spoke about the expulsion and about the house to which he had come back, pointing out the room where his father had run a bakery and the space at the rear where the kiln once stood. He rebuilt his livelihood as a broker, travelling between Jaffna and Colombo, finding a way to begin again.
November 2010, Moor Street, Jaffna
I headed for Moor Street. I had been told that some families had begun to return. The road was quiet. Dust gathered along the edges. On either side stood houses that had once been lived in.
Two men were chatting by the roadside. I asked if they knew anyone who had left and come back. They pointed me a short distance down, toward Mohammed Yassin’s house, near the mosque.
Mr Yassin welcomed me in without hesitation. He spoke about the day his family was made to leave. Then he walked me through the rooms. At the back of the house he showed me where his father’s bakery kiln had once stood.
He had since become a broker, travelling between Jaffna and Colombo. Was I interested in buying, he asked, half seriously.
Before I left, he brought out his doves. He fed them carefully. We stood watching them for a while.
He was home.
Transcript and translations
Language
Subjects discussed
All the Muslim people, you must leave Jaffna
On 30, October 1990 the LTTE announced for all the Muslims to come to the Jinnah grounds. So we went there about six thirty in the morning. An hour later, the LTTE’s Jaffna political leader, Ilamparathy, spoke to the crowd: “Within two hours, all the Muslim people must be ready to leave the Jaffna peninsula”.
Our Muslim leaders asked why. He replied that these were his leader’s orders. He said we couldn’t take any jewellery or cash with us. After the meeting I came home. I told my wife, but she didn’t believe me – she thought I was joking. So I asked her to check with the neighbours. She came back crying.
After two hours we went to the Five Junction meeting point. They searched everybody thoroughly, taking any jewellery or cash we had on us. They gave each family one thousand rupees then told us to go to the Manohara Theatre. We waited there for about six hours.
Then about five thirty they brought the minibuses and lorries to take us to Vavuniya. In each bus there were fifty or sixty people. We couldn’t talk, there were no meals, and getting a drink of water was very difficult.
Still we don’t know why we were chased out from Jaffna.” Only Anton Balasingham, Prabaharan, and Pottu Amman know.
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