The exhibition, Remembering Silenced Voices - Through the Eyes of a Survivor, is on at the Great Hall and features stories of six Sri Lankan Tamil families forced to flee their country after the riots. On July 23, 1983 violence broke out after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam attacked and killed 13 Sri Lankan soldiers in what is generally seen as the beginning of overt armed conflict between the separatists and the Sinhalese-led government.
According to reports, about 1,000 Tamil Sri Lankans were killed and thousands more fled the country.
"Some were beat up with hatchets, some were stabbed with knives and some were killed," wrote Arumaithurai Iyadurai, who was 23 years old when the violence started. "I remember most vividly army officials simply standing by and watching the violence."
Iyadurai eventually fled to a refugee camp before coming to Canada in 1990.
Elderly couple Sivapakkiam and Murugesu Sinnadurai were living in Wellawatta when the riots started. Sivapakkiam's husband was at work and she was at home with her two daughters when about 20 armed men burst through her door.
"They beat us and told us to leave," she wrote. "They told us to walk straight into the sea and kill ourselves."
Her home was looted and burned and her husband survived several harrowing experiences that day to reunite with his family. The family came to Canada in 1995.
"We lost everything in Black July," wrote Sivapakkiam. "We thought we were safe in our hometown."
The complete exhibition will be shown at Arta Gallery in Toronto on July 26.
For more information, visit www.blackjuly83.com.
cclay@mississauga.net
