Refugee students in Indira Gandhi International Academy

Bangalore, November 29: The humanitarian crisis in Tamil areas of Sri Lanka continues to grow. Many of the children fleeing violence are coming to a special school outside Bangalore.

About 15 km out of Bangalore, is the Indira Gandhi International Academy. It could be just another school but for one reason – the only students here are refugees from Sri Lanka.

Indira Gandhi International Academy head Chandran Natarajan says, “We have 200 children here and most of them are small children. They think this is our motherland.”

Revision tests have begun for Sharan Raj, a student of the academy, and his classmates. They’ll be writing their class X board exams in three months. And while they dream about life after school, and hopes of a career, there’s also a sense of frustration and longing.

Raj says, “I like to go to Sri Lanka but I can’t.”

Kularoopan came to India by boat when he was just two years old. Kokila has lost contact with her family. She doesn’t think they’ll meet again. But the frustration hasn’t stopped the learning.

It’s difficult – the classrooms haven’t had electricity for seven years, students live and study in the same place, the boy’s dorm is shared by 40 students. But their appetite is unending.

A class X student Y Vijayarekha says, “From six years I have been learning Hindi.”

Another student Kularoopan says he is doing BA in economics and will move in that field.

Peace talks today, derailed tomorrow – that’s what’s been happening for more than a decade and its children who are affected most.

Here’s a generation that’s given up on going back to their motherland and want to rebuild their lives all over again in India. Bhutan News Service