News stories by Amantha Perera, page 14

Seven years after monster waves crashed into homes, hotels and vehicles on Sri Lanka’s coast, people in this island nation continue to be haunted by demons from the sea.

There are times when Thiyagarajah Santhirakumaran, 35, wishes that he had died in Sri Lanka’s civil war. There is peace now, but with both his legs blown off by a shell he has little to look forward to except a life of dependency.

The rough road is almost indistinguishable from the mud huts and dilapidated surroundings of this village - still pockmarked by the artillery duels of Sri Lanka’s fierce civil war that ended more than two years ago.

The one thing that a quarter century of civil war has taught the local population in the north of the island is how to make the best use of local resources - starting with plain sunshine.

The sun’s rays bouncing off the A9 highway give it a shining glow. Once known as Sri Lanka’s ‘highway of death’, the road has come a long way from those macabre associations.

For Magei Kasai the battle against hardships did not end when the guns fell silent two years ago in the Sri Lankan civil war. New battles began for survival, for herself and for what was left of her family.

When Sri Lanka extended the age of retirement for government workers from 55 to 57 years it defied criticism that the island’s public sector was overstaffed and needed serious downsizing.

As paddy cultivation revives in Sri Lanka’s former war zones, prospects for the island’s food security have improved dramatically.

Although the Sri Lankan government has evaded calls for an international probe into alleged excesses while militarily defeating Tamil separatism in 2009, it may yet be called to account at the September session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

The details would have done credit to the plot of a spy thriller, except they are chillingly real.