Trincomalee, Jan. 24: Salika has a head of white hair, although she?s not 40 yet. Dressed in a borrowed sari, she still manages to look regal, with a soft smile on her face. She used to be a teacher. After the tsunami destroyed her home, she lives with her family of five children in a classroom in a government college.

Behind the smile is a wealth of sadness. ?My son?s wife and eight-month-old baby, they are lost,? she says, pointing to 21-year-old Ifran, who is dressed in jeans and shirt and is playing with some children. He smiles and nods, but doesn?t say much.

?He is normal most of the time. He doesn?t talk about it, but sometimes he gets upset,? says his mother. In moments of grief, his anger, pain, guilt, frustration and loss come out through tears and words. His wife and child were home when the waves came and took the baby away. His wife went into the sea to find him and lost her life. Their home at Annal Nahar in Kinniya town, Trincomalee district, is no more.

The family will soon be shifted to a tent elsewhere so the college can function and, maybe, one day she will have a home again. For now, though, with the help of a few volunteers, she does play therapy for over a 100 three- to five-year-olds at the relief camp.

Kinniya has lost more than 450 of its people to the sea, and more are still missing. On the seafront at Annal Nahar ? there used to be a beach, but the water level has risen, leaving only a patch of sand ? amid rows upon rows of rubble, all that remains of the Al-Minar Thona Beach Mosque are green slabs of what were once walls and a bent sign hanging loosely from the post. Forty toddlers died here. They were attending religious classes on the morning of December 26.

Salika says the kids are still suffering from trauma, but more urgently in need of counselling are mothers, guilty at being alive when their children are dead. Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in Ampara district, the worst-affected area in Sri Lanka.

An NGO official who just returned from Ampara after having worked there for two weeks says many mothers in relief camps have tried to commit suicide from guilt. No wonder then that Baby 81, a three-month-old who has been claimed by nine families at Kalmunai, Ampara, has caused a clamour among grieving parents. There are more such babies, less than a year old, with couples claiming them.