The children of Navalady

YEO YI XIN (Text & Pictures)

Navalady is a fishing village in Batticaloa, the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. It is also an area declared unsuitable for human settlement.

Located uniquely on a narrow strip of land between the sea and a lagoon, it was a prospering village where the fishing was lucrative, the beach a popular tourist attraction, and the villagers lived comfortably in their bricked single storey houses.

All that changed when the tsunami waves came. Nearly a thousand villagers lost their lives. Others lost family members and property.

The villagers were relocated to refugee camps after the tsunami, with the promise of permanent housing built inland. Eighty families chose to return, to stay in temporary shelters, to clear rubble for a little cash, and to continue to live where they truly belong.

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