Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Kandhamal violence: victims get a home

SAFE SHELTER: Children who were orphaned during the attacks on Christians in Kandhamal district, Orissa, at the Michael Job Orphanage in Coimbatore.

COIMBATORE: Five-year old Pragya Priyadarshini does not look up when she utters her name softly. Her large eyes are devoid of expression even as she is cajoled into speaking by the elders who stand next to her.

As her family was fleeing from their village to the city when the attack against Christians broke out in the Kandhamal district in Orissa, her parents were killed. Her only brother was taken away to a relief camp in Kolkata.

She is one among the 100 children who were brought to Coimbatore from Kandhamal, which recently witnessed a spate of violent communal killings.

The Michael Job Orphanage in Sulur has adopted these children, a majority of whose parents have been killed in the attacks.

The orphanage takes care of orphaned girls from various parts of the country.

Earlier, the orhanage had taken in 40 girl children from Kandhamal.

The children speak various dialects of Oriya and very little Hindi. But, Sunaenia Pradham manages to convey that the mob was “very very angry” with her father who was a postmaster of a village in Raikia.

Some children have their parents living in relief camps in various parts of the country. “At the railway station in Bhuvaneshwar, we were surrounded by hundreds of parents who pleaded with us to take their children too,” said P.P. Job, founder and pesident of Michael Job Orphanage for Girls.

“Hundreds of families have lost their houses, property and livelihood, and they don’t have the means to take care of their children. Most of them were scared that they would get killed,” Mr. Job says.

Of all the girls, 13-year-old Jerusha was the only one who willingly spoke about her story.

“My house was burnt and they put my father in jail,” she says in broken English.

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