POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AMONG SRI LANKAN TAMIL DIASPORA

(English)

There has been a severe political turmoil in Sri Lanka for the past three decades with disastrous consequences for the Tamil ethnic minorities.  The Tamil minority in the North Eastern part of Sri Lanka has been subjected to mass killing.  "In April United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a report by a panel of experts that concluded that both government forces and the LTTE conducted military operations “with flagrant disregard for the protection, rights, welfare and lives of civilians and failed to respect the norms of international law.” (The Human Rights Watch). The tragic history has been recorded as one of the worst events of human rights violation. Innocent civilians had been subjected to ruthless tortures and as a result of which the Sri Lankan Tamils fled from the island and settled in India, France, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Australia, Germany and Malaysia since the 1983 pogrom. They suffer from post trauma stress disorders as a result of being subjected to or witnessing such horror. They also suffer from a cumulative trauma that are concomitant of the dislocation, such as ‘identity crises’, ‘homelessness’ and ‘rootlessness’. These physical and psychological disturbances result in post trauma stress disorders, peculiar to the above mentioned situations, during war and post-war period. The current study aims at analysing the post traumatic stress disorders prevalent among the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora in select locations in Subramanyapuram refugee camp in order to make a comparative analysis of the two.

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