The Incident
Eye witness accounts were documented by Amnesty International. The government owned ferry boat known as a launch in the local Sri Lankan Tamil dialect named Kumudini(also Kumuthini) plying between number of islets in the Northern province was boarded with passengers at about 7.45 a.m. on May 15, 1985. After it had moved from the island of Delft towards the island of Nainativu, it was ordered stopped by some men who came in a fiber glass boat. About six men boarded Kumudini while about two remained in the fiber glass boat which they tied on to Kumudini. The men who boarded Kumudini had rifles and all of them were dressed variously in blue pants or shorts and T-shirts as worn by the Sri Lankan navy personnel.
All the passengers and crew were ordered to enter the forepart of the boat and ordered below deck. All the passengers were also made to shout out their names, status, locality and where bound to and then they were ordered to come out one at a time. One man pointing out a gun shouted out such an orders in broken Tamil. The eye witness or the others in the fore section did not know what was happening to each person who was led away in this manner owing to the noise created by the forced shouting of passengers.
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When the eyewitness approached the upper desk, he saw blood all over and the cut pieces of human bodies. At this juncture the eye witness shouted and refused to move.
"I was then hit on the head and I fell. I felt that I was dragged and cut on my head by some kind of a hatchet. I received further injuries on my stomach and legs and fell between the boards of the bottom of the boat. I pretended to be dead and lay there. I felt further bodies falling over mine and the cries of distress of men and women."
About 45 minutes after the attack on the eye witness the fiber glass boat left the ferry boat.
Villagers in 2007 reported to local Human Rights groups such as UTHR that special knives used by local toddy tappers to tap toddy was collected and used by the perpetrators to kill the passengers.
Read more about this topic: Kumudini Boat Massacre
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