A Homeland Lost: 36 Years Since the Expulsion of Northern Muslims
Political Vulnerability and Exclusion
The vulnerability of Northern Muslims must be understood within the broader political structure of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, which was largely framed between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil nationalist movement. Within this binary, Muslims were often overlooked despite being a minority both nationally and within the Northern Province. Although Northern Muslims had historically coexisted with Tamil communities for generations, sharing language, trade networks and social spaces, their political concerns and security anxieties increasingly became marginal within competing nationalist projects during the conflict. Their concerns were often sidelined within broader peace and political negotiations and were not meaningfully incorporated into the dominant frameworks advanced by either the Government or the Tamil nationalist movement. At the same time, the LTTE increasingly perceived Muslims as aligned with the state, contributing to mistrust and violence. As a result, rigid political structures and limited representation left Northern Muslims especially exposed, creating the conditions for their mass expulsion in 1990.
The Expulsion
In October 1990, the LTTE expelled an estimated 72,000 to 75,000 Muslims from the Northern Province within a matter of days. Families who had lived for generations in districts such as Jaffna, Mannar, Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Vavuniya were ordered to leave their homes under threat of death, marking one of the largest and most systematic episodes of forced displacement in the country’s history.
Violence, intimidation and armed coercion were reported across multiple locations during the expulsion. For instance, in Chavakachcheri, nearly 1,000 Muslims were reportedly forced out at gunpoint. Communities across Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi were instructed to leave within days. The most severe phase came in Jaffna, where families were allegedly given as little as two hours to evacuate.
Families were allowed to carry only minimal cash, often between Rs. 150 and Rs. 300, and a few belongings. Personal property, jewelry, official documents, savings, and household goods were confiscated. Many families left behind valuables and property under the belief that they would soon be permitted to return and reclaim them. Many homes were later looted or stripped of fixtures such as doors, roofing and windows.
The expulsion also occurred within a broader period of escalating violence against Muslim communities in the East. The massacres in Kattankudy and Eravur in August 1990, alongside other targeted attacks, deepened fear and collective vulnerability among Muslims across the country.
Prolonged Displacement and Social Transformation
The majority sought refuge in the Puttalam District, while others moved to areas such as Anuradhapura, Kurunegala and Colombo. In Puttalam, overcrowded welfare centres and temporary shelters gradually became permanent living spaces. Over time, displacement reshaped every aspect of community life. Entire generations were born outside their ancestral lands. Livelihoods tied to agriculture, trade and coastal economies were disrupted, and in many cases permanently lost. Poverty, overcrowding, and limited access to land and services became recurrent features of life in displacement.
Displaced Muslims faced significant struggles during relocation, including limited access to employment, schooling and healthcare, particularly during the early years of displacement. In some host communities, tensions emerged over the distribution of humanitarian assistance and scarce resources, contributing to resentment and social marginalisation.
Displacement also altered internal community dynamics. Traditional livelihoods collapsed, and families were forced to adapt to changing conditions. Women increasingly became primary economic contributors in many households, often navigating limited employment opportunities alongside social constraints and vulnerability within camp environments. Cultural expression and identity also evolved under these pressures, as dress, mobility and social interaction shifted within host communities, sometimes as adaptation and at other times as a response to insecurity or the need for social acceptance.
Unresolved Justice
Although the war ended in 2009, the question of return remains unresolved for many displaced Muslims. Those who attempted to return often encountered destroyed homes, occupied lands, missing documentation and unresolved land disputes. Land restitution has been slow and fragmented, complicated by bureaucracy, demographic changes and competing claims over land use. In some areas, Muslim-owned lands were also reportedly occupied or appropriated by security forces during and after the conflict, further complicating return and restitution efforts.
During the ceasefire and post-war periods, return and resettlement efforts raised deeper questions about what constituted a durable solution for displaced Northern Muslims. While some families attempted to return to their original homes in the North, others chose to remain in Puttalam and elsewhere due to economic realities, access to education, social networks developed over decades, insecurity and inadequate infrastructure in areas of return. Those who returned often faced damaged housing, limited livelihood opportunities and continuing difficulties reclaiming land and property.
The 1990 expulsion is best understood as ethnic cleansing, given its scale, speed, and the intent to permanently remove a population from a territory it had historically inhabited. While the term remains politically sensitive and contested in public discourse, the patterns of forced removal, seizure of property and prevention of return are consistent with established international legal understanding of ethnic cleansing.
At the same time, the absence of a comprehensive transitional justice process has meant that accountability, truth-seeking and reparations for Northern Muslims remain largely unaddressed. Unlike other dimensions of the conflict that have been partially incorporated into post-war reconciliation frameworks, the expulsion has not been systematically examined through formal truth commissions, reparations schemes or institutional land restitution mechanisms. This reflects a broader transitional justice failure.
Several state and non-state initiatives have documented the plight of the Northern Muslims. Among the most significant initiatives was the Citizens’ Commission on the Expulsion of Muslims from the Northern Province (2011), which focused specifically on recording testimonies, documenting patterns of displacement, loss and dispossession, and examining the long-term consequences of the expulsion. The 2017 Consultation Task Force (CTF) on Reconciliation Mechanisms also documented grievances raised by Northern Muslim communities relating to the absence of acknowledgment within national reconciliation processes. In this context, neither state responsibility nor non-state armed group responsibility has been adequately clarified or translated into remedies for victims. While the LTTE bore direct responsibility for the expulsion, the experiences of Northern Muslims also reflect broader failures of the state. This included failures to ensure protection and address the growing insecurity faced by Muslim communities in the North and East.
Dignity, Belonging and the Present
Over three decades later, the expulsion of Northern Muslims remains an open wound. What began as forced displacement has evolved into decades of suspended belonging, where home exists more as memory than place. The question today is no longer only about return, but about whether a displaced community can ever fully recover its sense of belonging.
Reconciliation in this context cannot be reduced to remembrance alone. It depends on whether the losses of 1990 are acknowledged in ways that lead to genuine repair, whether through return, restitution where possible for all communities affected by the conflict.
References
https://groundviews.org/2023/10/30/northern-muslims-right-to-return-whose-responsibility/
https://polity.lk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/EXPULSION-OF-MUSLIMS.pdf