-By LeN Muslim Affairs Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -12.July.2025, 11.20 PM) As the world pauses to mark the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide this July, honouring the memory of over 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys massacred in July 1995 during the Bosnian War, thousands of miles away, in the quiet coastal town of Kattankudy in Sri Lanka's Eastern Province, an unresolved grief festers among survivors of a similarly brutal mass killing—one the world has all but forgotten.
In the late hours of August 3, 1990, as more than 300 Muslim worshippers knelt in prayer for the Isha-inside two mosques in Kattankudy, armed cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) stormed in, spraying bullets and throwing grenades. Within minutes, at least 147 Muslim men and boys lay dead. Many of the victims were gunned down in prostration, their bodies strewn across blood-soaked prayer mats, the sacred space of worship transformed into a tomb.
While Srebrenica has been rightfully etched into the global memory as a symbol of genocide—acknowledged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and commemorated annually with state-led rituals—Kattankudy remains, even after 35 years, a massacre without formal international recognition. There have been no UN resolutions, no Hague verdicts, and, to date, no war crimes tribunal has declared the Kattankudy killings a genocide.
For many Sri Lankan Muslims, particularly those in the war-scarred east, the parallels with Srebrenica are more than symbolic. Both massacres targeted men and boys of a single religious and ethnic identity. Both were executed with cold, calculated brutality. Both occurred in the shadow of larger conflicts, where the international community’s gaze was either elsewhere or too late.
“The people of Bosnia went to The Hague,” said a Kattankudy community leader who lost two brothers in the mosque attack. “They fought, they got justice. We are still waiting. Thirty-five years, and we are still waiting for the world to see us.”
And yet, unlike the Serbian paramilitaries in Bosnia, some of the alleged perpetrators of the Kattankudy massacre are not only unpunished, but living comfortably in Western countries. According to survivors and investigative reports, several former Eastern Province LTTE leaders, and their ground-level operatives who may have taken part in the massacre, have since relocated to the UK, Canada, and France—often with asylum or refugee status.
“There are people who fired bullets into children’s faces during Isha prayers who are now posting holiday photos from Europe,” said one survivor, now in his 60s. “This is the truth. And it is an insult to justice.”
The LTTE, often portrayed in Western human rights narratives as a victim of state oppression, has a long record of targeting minorities—including Muslims and Sinhalese civilians. Throughout the 1990s, the group executed a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against Muslims in the north and east of Sri Lanka. In October 1990, just two months after the Kattankudy massacre, over 75,000 Muslims were expelled overnight from Jaffna by the LTTE, with a 24-hour ultimatum and no right to return.
Yet these atrocities rarely make it into international conversations on accountability. Much of the global focus since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009 has centred on alleged war crimes by the Sri Lankan state during the final stages of the conflict. While those concerns are legitimate, Sri Lankan Muslims and others argue that selective memory has allowed LTTE atrocities—especially against Muslims—to fade into historical ambiguity.
“It’s as if Muslim blood is cheaper,” said a Colombo-based academic who has researched wartime atrocities in Sri Lanka. “We must ask why the deaths of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were recognised as genocide, while 147 Muslims killed in prayer in Kattankudy are still footnotes.”
The renewed global focus on Srebrenica has reignited calls from Sri Lankan Muslims for the international community to re-examine the Kattankudy massacre through the legal lens of genocide.
According to the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Survivors and legal experts argue that the Kattankudy killings squarely meet these criteria.
“These were not accidental civilian deaths in a firefight,” said a human rights lawyer in Sri Lanka. “This was a deliberate, premeditated attack on a religious community gathered in worship. It was intended to terrorise, to ethnically cleanse. If this doesn’t count as genocide, then we have emptied the word of its meaning.”
Calls are growing for the Sri Lankan government—now led by the leftist National People’s Power (NPP) coalition—to initiate an international process similar to Bosnia’s, including commissioning an independent truth commission and pursuing extradition of surviving LTTE figures living abroad.
In the UK, where several Tamil diaspora leaders now reside, community leaders from Sri Lanka's Muslim diaspora are preparing legal dossiers to lobby Parliament and initiate private prosecutions. “We are not asking for revenge,” said one organiser. “We are asking for recognition. For the truth to be acknowledged.”
But politics, as ever, is an obstacle. The Tamil diaspora remains a powerful voice in Western capitals, often framing the LTTE in a heroic light as resistance fighters. The Muslim experience during Sri Lanka’s conflict rarely figures in these accounts.
In Bosnia, the international community eventually rallied—belatedly—to recognise the scale of atrocity. The ICTY convicted Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić of genocide. Survivors saw their loved ones’ deaths legally and morally vindicated.
In Kattankudy, no such moment has arrived. “There is no international tribunal for us,” said a grieving mother who lost her teenage son in the mosque. “Only Allah knows our pain.”
As the world lays flowers at the Srebrenica memorial this month, Sri Lankan Muslims in Kattankudy, Batticaloa, and beyond hope the petals will fall not only in remembrance of Bosnia’s martyrs—but also in solidarity with their own.
They are not calling for attention. They are calling for justice.
What Happened in Kattankudy?
Date: August 3, 1990
Location: Meera and Hussainiya Mosques, Kattankudy, Eastern Sri Lanka
Victims: At least 147 Muslim men and boys
Alleged Perpetrators: Tamil Tiger (LTTE) militants, many believed to be from the Eastern Command
Aftermath: No convictions. Several LTTE leaders suspected of involvement now live abroad.
Genocide Defined
Under Article II of the 1948 UN Convention, genocide includes “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” including:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm
Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group
Imposing measures to prevent births
Forcibly transferring children to another group
Legal experts argue that the Kattankudy massacre meets the first two criteria.
-By LeN Muslim Affairs Correspondent
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by (2025-07-12 19:11:35)
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