Uthayan News Paper Press & Head Office

Sri Lankans: Making a Stranger Feel Like Family

"Inside Uthayan, the only Tamil news organization to survive the civil war, I saw obvious signs of that history: bullet holes in the main room, ruined computers, and graphic photos of journalists killed in paramilitary attacks, plus a wall honoring those missing and likely dead. The paper survived repeated government attempts to shut it down, and the editor—who gave us a tour and introduced staff—told me that while the fighting has stopped things aren’t fully normal because the same military leaders and officials remain, though he felt things were moving in the right direction. The building and its relics of raids bore the scars of war, and seeing the newsroom and meeting the people who worked there made the conflict’s human cost painfully real to me." - Matthew Kepnes