Who Selects Our Grief?

In August 2022, Anuttara Indunil, a schoolgirl, lost her life to a wild elephant while delivering alms for her deceased brother's memorial in Hasalaka. Additionally, in August 2025, seven-year-old Hewage Kinuli lost her life in an elephant attack while accompanying her father to their cultivation land in Hambantota. In May 2026, Thanuja Samarawickrema, aged 25, and her father, G. Ananda Samarawickrema, 57, were killed by a wild elephant in Wilgamuwa as the man was taking her to her workplace.

These incidents are among numerous tragedies that continue to occur across Sri Lanka, leaving families in mourning while the underlying causes of the danger remain largely unaddressed. However, do you care about the suffering of the powerless, the families left behind, and the lasting trauma of their loss?

The death of a prominent tusker, like Kavantissa, can evoke a sense of shared loss and become a national event, with political leaders issuing statements, and social media filled with grief. In contrast, rural victims are often known only through the circumstances of their deaths, and their stories receive less attention and follow-up. This difference in public attention reflects the stories told, their duration, and whether audiences are invited to see a life beyond the final moments of the victim.

When the focus is solely on the tragic event, the audience may not be prompted to consider the conditions that made the victim vulnerable. Issues such as whether the family was reliant on cultivation near an elephant route, the necessity of the journey for work or family care, the availability of warnings, road safety, and the adequacy of protective measures become relevant. These questions highlight the roles of poverty, rural neglect, and public responsibility in the tragedy.

The public's response to suffering can vary based on factors like culture, media, memory, and repeated public attention. Public sympathy may express innocence and impotence, but it may not necessarily lead to evidence, prevention, and accountability. The way a disaster is framed can significantly impact public attention. While an elephant attack can generate immediate outrage, repeated deaths among people with limited public influence may become familiar and be mistaken for inevitability.

The underlying structural issues like poverty, land-use decisions, weak infrastructure, and institutions that fail to reduce known risks contribute to the vulnerability of rural families. An ordinary journey or daily work routine can end in death for these families who risk their lives for their livelihood, cultivation, and to provide for their children. Public attention may be directed towards certain deaths while others remain unnoticed, failing to address the structural issues that perpetuate the danger.