Annai Illam: Using Lay Counselors to Serve the Trauma-Related Mental Health Needs of Remote Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, a beautiful island nation, was once called the “Pearl of the Indian Ocean.” Its beauty, however, has been marred by the 30-year ethnic war that ended in May 2009. Human rights organizations around the world have accused the Sri Lankan government of killing more than 40,000 Tamil civilians in the course of the so-called “final war” in which the Sri Lankan government forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Although the ethnic conflict between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils has been ongoing for many decades, the armed conflict between the Sri Lankan government forces and the Tamil Tigers escalated only after 1983, when countless Tamils living in Sinhalese areas were killed in a pogrom. The Tamil people who live predominantly in the north and east of Sri Lanka have experienced multiple displacements as a result of the military operations carried out by the Sri Lankan forces opposing the Tamil militants. October 30, 1995, is an unforgettable day in the history of Tamils living in the north of Sri Lanka, particularly in the Jaffna Peninsula. When the Sri Lankan government forces began military operations to bring the Jaffna peninsula under their control, almost half a million Tamils fled their villages and began moving south. The Tamil Guardian of November 2, 2005, remembered this mass exodus in the following manner: Ten years ago, the entire town of Jaffna, the largest Tamil population centre in Sri Lanka, streamed out of their homes ahead of a major offensive by government troops against their town. On October 30, 1995, half a million men, women and children walked several miles east, crossing the Navatkuli bridge into the neck of the peninsula. Many then made the dangerous boat journey on to Kilinochchi in the Vanni as to the north of Jaffna, heavy fighting raged as