Ten years ago, the Sri Lan­kan sta­te bru­t­ally ended the armed con­flict in Sri Lan­ka against the Libe­ra­ti­on Tigers of Tamil Eelam. A UN report esti­ma­tes that more than 70‘000 Tamil peo­p­le could have been kil­led in the last few months of the con­flict, most­ly by indis­cri­mi­na­te shel­ling and ext­ra­ju­di­cal kil­lings by the Sri Lan­kan Armed Forces. Many NGOs and acti­vists esti­ma­te the num­ber to be higher.

TaVS hos­ted an exhi­bi­ti­on with pain­tings from Tamil artist Pugaz­hen­thi. His pain­tings show the pain and grief but also the resi­li­ence of the Tamil peo­p­le during the last pha­se of the war. The exhi­bi­ti­on took place in the atri­um of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Zurich Irchel from the 13th to the 17th May 2019. 

In remem­brance of the 10 year anni­ver­sa­ry TaVS also orga­ni­zed a cand­le vigil at Bür­kli­platz in Zurich. We want to thank ever­yo­ne who visi­ted the exhi­bi­ti­on and vigil for their sup­port and solidarity.

We also want to thank artist Pugaz­hen­thi for his ama­zing pain­tings and dra­wings, PEARL for pro­vi­ding us with their infor­ma­ti­ve texts regar­ding the war and SOS ETHZ for len­ding us their beau­tiful easels.