The A9 Road and the starving people of Jaffna

The Alpha 9 or A9 road is a key civilian supply route to the north Sri Lankan Tamil majority, government controlled Jaffna Peninsular. The Road links Kandy to Jaffna.

Since the 2002 ceasefire a large part of it falls under rebel control.

From Oomanthi, about 60 kilometers north of the government controlled town of Vavunia to Muhamalai, the entry into Jaffna peninsular, the road is controlled by the rebels.

The Sri Lankan army accuses the rebels of using the road to push in its cadres to forment trouble in Jaffna. Claymore mine attacks on troops and other such acts have been blamed on such infiltrators.

The government closed the road on the 11th of August, after an alleged bid by the rebels to storm into Muhamalai through the A9 road. The surprise attack was repulsed and the road closed for civilian traffic.

The army says it exposes itself to more such attacks and infiltration by Tamil tiger cadres if the road is open.

What this means is massive shortages of essential supplies to the over 600000 civilians of Jaffna...as the hundreds of supply laden trucks that came in every day have not done so since August.

Rice, dal, sugar, flour, baby food, biscuits, match boxes, cloth, cement, fuel...everything is in short supply. Prices have gone up more than 10 times over the past three months.

Bulk supplies can come only through the sea. But here too the volumes required just can't come in. For one the government says the rebels have threatened traders not to hire ships to bring in supplies.

They also do not offer security guarantees to the ships the government brings in with supplies...making it difficult for the government to hire ships. Insurance cost for such ships has become prohibitive.

Add to this the monsoon rains, which makes the task of loading and unloading cargo difficult. At the Point Pedro port, it now takes more than a week to unload a ship. On a clear day it takes just 4 days.

Private traders are reluctant to distribute the supplies the government brings in. The army says they are threatened by the rebels. "They know that if they come anywhere near the stuff we bring in they will be shot dead."

So the government and the army have taken the task of distributing these meager supplies to the civilians.

At this "Army welfare shop" I visited in Jaffna, people had been standing in a queue since 5 in the morning. Men, women, children...all desperate to get the counter before the stocks run out.

The queue does not move for hours after stocks run out. A few more sacks of supplies arrive and the queue moves again.
" We stand from early morning to evening, but most days we return empty handed at the end of the day. If I am lucky I will get a few kilos of rice, 200 grams of sugar, one match box and some flour for my family of 7. This is all I will get for the whole month. We are starving, it is really bad. " Says an elderly man who asked not to be named.

The daily dusk to dawn curfew starts at 6 pm and people are desperate to get their supplies before that.
"There is no work and no food since the A9 was shut." says another man in the queue who also does not want to be named. "I am a construction worker, since the road was shut there is no cement, steel, wood or construction material. So a majority of daily wage earners have lost their jobs. I am a mason and have not got work in months now."

At the Nallur Kandaswamy temple in Jaffna many brave the afternoon sun to pray for better times...they have seen worse. I ask a vendor outside the temple to tell me about her life. She smiles nervously. She does not want to speak.
The beggars too don't want to come to a stranger asking questions.

Fuel shortages in the city mean most who come to the temple come on bicycles. I see a wonderfully maintained Morris car.
It still gives good mileage on locally made spares and runs on a mixture of petrol and kerosene oil. The driver does not want to talk to me about shortages.

I move into the residential areas. At a corner store I meet Sachidanand. He tells me his shelves have not seen fresh stock since August. The few vegetables he sells now are 10 times more expensive than they were 4 months ago.


Satush Kumar a tailor next door tells me "Business is bad. There is very little cloth available in Jaffna. Moreover, why would people want to get new clothes stitched when they don't have enough to feed their children."

At a medical store near the temple, the owner tells me he has no stock of life saving drugs...just vitamin pills and supplements. "Where do people who desperately need these medicines go?" I asked him.

"They go to the government hospital and wait in the long queue, if they are lucky they get the medicines. If not they go the next day to try their luck" he tells me.

Fishermen are not allowed to go into the deep seas by the navy. The sea tigers use boats that look like fishing boats to attack the navy and army an officer tells me.

It is a precaution...but what it means for the people of Jaffna is expensive fish.

The Jaffna army commander Maj Gen Chandrasiri tells me the army is doing all it can. " We offered to open the A9 as a one time humanitarian gesture and get in 500 trucks to stabilise the situation, the tigers rejected the offer. We offered to open an alternate land route, they rejected it as well. They are insisting on opening the A9 road so that they can start using it for anti-security forces and anti-government work again. If they really care for the civilians they would have allowed supplies in and given security guarantees to the ships" He says.

At a check post at Pannai, civilians are made to get off their buses for frisking. As we start filming, the army starts distributing free rations to the civilians. Men, women and children queue up.



This is the road that leads to the volatile islands around the peninsular.

" This bag is good for one meal for my family. I have five children, what do I do after that. I am a driver...used to make 500 rupees a day taking passengers up and down the A9 road. I have no job now. If they really want to help me they should open the road instead of giving me free food." An irate resident tells me

At the fish market in Jaffna, there is very little fish and more fish sellers than buyers.

The Sri Lankan Navy has barred fishermen from going into deep sea...so the catch has fallen. And given the dip in supply, price of fish has shot up...making it unaffordable.

The navy accusses the rebels of using fishing boats to mount operations against its positions in Jaffna. Officials say it is too risky to allow fishermen go beyond 50 nautical miles from the coast.

"The sea tigers will mix with the fishermen and mount attacks. The poor fishermen suffer." a army officer tells me.

Meanwhile, the rebels have said that they will not return to talks with the government untill the A9 road is open. This is what S P Thamilselvan had to say last evening after meeting a Norwegian envoy.

"It is critical that the International Community addresses the issue of Colombo's cooperation in re-opening of A9 and A15 land routes ensuring the Tamil people their top-most basic humanitarian need"


So as the government and the rebels fail to find common ground on opening the A9 road, over 600000 people of Jaffna, continue to suffer.

(Copyrights : Rajesh Sundaram)