Between August 1989 and January 1990, 48 school children in Embilipitiya were abducted and murdered. Several of their bodies were found in a mass grave nearby. Some of the perpetrators, including military personnel, have been brough to justice. As a result, their families have been able to find some kind of closure. Mothers in Kilinochchi, however, do not have any idea where their children are after handing them over the military in the expectation that they would be returned.
When artist Jagath Weerasinghe did a series of clay representations on the forcibly disappeared, he witnessed a stark contrast between the mothers of in Kilinochchi and the Embilipitiya mothers. The mothers from the North did not want the clayimpressions of their clenched fists fired because they had unfinished business while the mothers from Embilipitiya did not mind the firing.
