By Uditha Jayasinghe
COLOMBO, July 8 (Reuters) - Dularika Perera, 38, only found out her cousin was among 26 people killed in the worst Sri Lankan prison riot in years when his photo was sent to her on WhatsApp.
The seven prison officials and 19 prisoners died in two days of fighting between two groups of inmates at the prison in the coastal town of Negombo, about 35 km (20 miles) north of the commercial capital, Colombo, authorities said.
Clad in white and holding onto her four-year-old son, Perera was among the grieving relatives and friends waiting on Wednesday morning for the bodies of the prison officials to be brought to the Welikada Prison in Colombo.
Sergeant S.D.S Abeywardana, 41, had spent a dozen years in Sri Lanka’s navy before joining a special unit under the prison’s department tasked with tackling corruption, drug trafficking and misconduct.
Abeywardana was among 120 members of the unit sent to the Negombo prison when clashes broke out on Sunday and escalated on Monday. Six of his colleagues also died after being attacked by inmates using mostly bricks and clubs when they attempted to stop prisoners from escaping.
The bodies of the 19 inmates who died were also released to their families.
GRIEF AND DISBELIEF
“When I heard about the clash, I thought he’s only hospitalised, he will come home,” Perera said, holding back tears. ”I never dreamt this would happen.”
“He has a five-year-old daughter and an eight-month-old son. He was more like a brother to me and we were very close. He looked after everyone in the family. He didn’t deserve to die like this.”
After a postmortem in Negombo, the seven bodies - covered in the Sri Lankan flag - were escorted by police to the Welikada prison in Colombo to be handed over to their families. White flags fluttered outside the prison gate and dozens of officials lined up to pay their last respects.
Initial investigations show the fight started when a few prisoners leaked information on efforts to smuggle drugs into the prison to prison officials, Minister of Justice and National Integration Harshana Nanayakkara told parliament on Tuesday.
The Negombo prison housed about 2,400 inmates despite only having a capacity for about 650, according to the Committee for Protecting Rights of Prisoners, resulting in severe overcrowding.
Previous incidents of prison violence in Sri Lanka included a riot in November 2020 that left 11 inmates dead and a riot in 2012 in Colombo that left 27 dead.
(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
