JAFFNA: The bullet holes in the walls at St Patrick’s school in the Jaffna peninsula are slowly being covered over, but it may take a little longer for the students to recover from years of war.

Bombs and bullets left their marks on the school, as they did on almost every building in northern Sri Lanka, during fighting between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who controlled the town of Jaffna until 1995.

But a transformation has begun since the government and LTTE signed a ceasefire 21 months ago, silencing the guns and opening a road connecting Jaffna to the rest of the island.

The change of heart will be harder than a change of paint, though, school principal Father Justin Bernard Gnanapragasam said.

“It is a combination of trauma and resignation. A lot of them were born in the war zone amid bombing and fighting,” Father Justin said of the school’s 1,500 students.

“The attitude among the children is ‘We don’t know where we will have to run next’. They don’t feel settled.”

Those doubts increased this month when a political struggle erupted between Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister, threatening the peace process.

Although there has been no heavy fighting on the peninsula since early 2001, there is still a huge military presence. Since the truce, the LTTE operates openly, including recruiting in the school, although the students show little desire to join.

“They have no enthusiasm for joining the LTTE. They have no enthusiasm for anything. They have stopped enjoying life,” Father Justin said.

Students at the school shied away from answering questions from a visiting reporter.

Jaffna, the cultural home of the Tamils, witnessed an exodus in 1996 as tens of thousands of people fled into the southern Wanni region ahead of the advancing army.

St Patrick’s was shut for several months when students and teachers left. Its furniture was used as firewood and the library ransacked.

The peninsula was captured by the Sri Lankan army in 1996, a high point in its war against the LTTE, which is fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils in the island’s north and east.—Reuters