Sri Lanka’s former child soldiers: Not reunited
[The Economist]
WHEN Shanthakumar Kamala fled the inferno of fighting in northern Sri Lanka in 2009, she was clutching a number of glossy photographs to her chest but little else. Mrs Shanthakumar holds out the pictures now—one of a smart lad in school uniform, one of him wearing a Boy Scout kit—and sobs that she wants her son, Thanuraj, back. Like hundreds of other children, he went missing in the harrowing final months of fighting between Sri Lanka’s military and the Tamil Tigers (known as the LTTE) in 2009. Inspired by a few children who have been found by their families, his mother continues her desperate search.