The Island Nation
“I was so disgusted. The whole system failed. It wasn’t only the UN but the whole international community. Tens of thousands of civilians were slaughtered by the Sri Lankan government and the world just moved on. It just passed us by”. - a UN aid worker.
What happened in Sri Lanka in 2009 during the culmination of the decades-long conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government is one of the great under-reported war stories of the past 30 years. The UN estimates that between 10,000 and 40,000 civilians trapped in the war zone were killed. The scale of the war crimes committed on both sides were deeply shocking, but for a
number of complex reasons, the events passed the world by – at the same time as the Israeli attack of Gaza was receiving international condemnation and attention. The Sri Lankan government have, as yet, not provided an adequate account of what happened in the war zone, but there are approximately a quarter of a million civilians who managed to survive and while going on the record as an individual might be too dangerous for them, our aim is to provide a platform for their collective story and to contribute to a full reckoning over the abuses committed.
We are interested in telling the stories of those who witnessed the endgame of the war first-hand in an effort to counter both the intransigence of the Sri Lankan government to adequately investigate the war crimes committed and also to powerfully communicate to the general public the largely hidden story of those final months.
We have established a working relationship with British journalist Frances Harrison, who has spent the last year tracking down and interviewing survivors. Frances has conducted multiple in-depth, harrowing interviews with eye-witnesses about the reality on the ground. The horrific, abrupt end to the war saw people witnessing their family members die, but most could do nothing but run, forced to abandon their bodies. The mental health impacts on the survivors have been profound.
In order to do justice to the horror, magnitude and desperation of these stories, and to set them in a context which sheds light on the complexity of the long-standing internal conflict, our vision for this piece is very ambitious in scale. We are currently in a research and development phase and plan to have the first draft of the script completed by autumn 2012. In essence, we are seeking to create a large-scale production which will move, challenge and shock audiences and shed some much needed light on an appalling chapter in our recent history that has largely been ignored by most of the world.
Writers Christine Bacon and Noah Birksted-breen are now in the process of writing the first draft of the script. Production scheduled for Autumn 2013.
For those interested in finding out more about what happened in Sri Lanka in 2009, the following list is a good place to start:
The Cage (2011) by Gordon Weiss
Channel 4 documentaries – Sri Lankas Killing Fields







