Latest news feedRefugees Magazine Issue 130: (Sri Lanka) – Chronology: Sri Lanka at a glance
February 4, 1948
Ceylon gains independence after 152 years of British rule.
June 1956
Sinhala, the language of the majority Sinhalese population, is designated the country's sole official language, the first of several government measures which the minority Tamil population worried were officially inspired efforts to marginalize them.
1972
Ceylon changes its name to Sri Lanka and Buddhism is given primary place as the country's religion, further antagonizing the Hindu Tamil community.
1976
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of several Tamil military or political organizations, is formed as tensions increase in the north and east of the country.
July 23, 1983
Thirteen government soldiers killed in an LTTE ambush at Tinnevely effectively beginning the country's civil war during which the guerrillas will demand full independence for the country's nearly three million Tamils. Several hundred Tamil civilians killed in systematic anti-Tamil rioting and conflict spreads in northern Sri Lanka. Large numbers of civilians begin fleeing their homes, becoming internally displaced within Sri Lanka or refugees in neighbouring India.
1987
Government forces isolate LTTE in the northern city of Jaffna and Colombo reaches agreement with India, which is sympathetic to the Tamil cause, on the deployment of an Indian peacekeeping force to the island.
November 2, 1987
UNHCR begins operations in Sri Lanka, primarily to assist in the repatriation of an estimated 100,000 refugees from India. At this time there are an estimated 400,000 civilians uprooted from their homes, but as the conflict continues through the 1990s, this rises to more than one million displaced civilians.
1991
The last Indian troops leave after getting bogged down in escalating fighting in the north of the country and the LTTE forces take over many of the vacated areas.
1991
UNHCR expands its operations following a specific request by the U.N. Secretary-General, to include helping hundreds of thousands of civilians internally displaced within the country. It is one of the first times the agency has worked with such large numbers of IDPs anywhere.
1991
The LTTE is implicated in the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in southern India by a suicide bomber and two years later President Premadasa is killed in a bomb attack by the LTTE, possibly the first group to introduce suicide bombings as a military strategy.
January 31, 1996
A suicide bomb kills more than 100 civilians and wounds another 1,300 at the Central Bank in the capital, Colombo, and the government extends a state of emergency across the country.
1997-2000
Continuous and intensive fighting in the north and east of the country as the fortunes of war swing back and forth. President Kumaratunga is wounded and more than 20 others killed by a female suicide bomber at an election rally in 1999. As many as 65,000 persons are killed during the nearly two-decade long conflict.
February 2002
After several previously failed attempts at peace, the government and Tamil Tigers sign a permanent cease-fire agreement, paving the way for talks under a new peace initiative sponsored by Norway.
2002
A peace dividend begins. The major highway linking the northern Jaffna Peninsula with the rest of the country opens for the first time in 12 years; airline flights to Jaffna resume; the government temporarily lifts its ban on the Tamil Tigers who drop their demand for a separate state in favor of some form of autonomy.
2002-2003
As a series of negotiations continue, some 260,000 internally displaced civilians return to their homes. Around 1,000 refugees arrive back from India. To consolidate the peace process, UNHCR expands both its presence in the areas most affected by the conflict and its overall budget to nearly $15 million. The agency will assist hundreds of thousands of IDPs and refugees still waiting to go back to their villages with protection and material assistance programmes.
Source: Refugees Magazine Issue 130: "Sri Lanka – Emerging from the ruins" (April 2003). Download the complete issue in pdf format: low-resolution (880Kb) here or high-resolution (1.5Mb) here.
