Sri Lankan Teen Raped by Rescuer
After Being Pulled From the Tsunami
January 10, 2005
by Kevin Caruso
“He told me to grab his hand, that he will save me,” said an 18-year-old Sri Lankan girl, talking about that man who extended his arm to help pull her from the tsunami.
But the intentions of this man were not to help this young girl, but to assault and violate her in the worst imaginable way in the midst of the tsunami tragedy.
The girl and the stranger reached an isolated muddy river bank, and it was there that he pushed her to the ground and brutally raped her.
"I screamed and told him not to hurt me," said the girl. "But he slapped me in the face and put his hands around my neck and told me that even if he killed me no one will know."
After being viciously raped and assaulted, the dazed and horrified girl then went to look for her family who was with her on the beach.
Two men found her and brought her to a rescue truck. As she climbed into the large truck, she saw her brother lying dead.
She fainted.
She was then taken to a local hospital and was told that her mother and father were also killed by the tsunami.
Overwhelmed and deeply afraid, she was hesitant to tell anyone about the rape, but she did not want to become pregnant because of the rape, so on the second day in the hospital, she told her doctor what had happened.
The doctor immediately gave her a pill that prevents pregnancy.
Deeply depressed and overwhelmed, she now has another concern: “Rape is shameful and people will gossip about me. I may never find a husband.”
