Crosby man escapes war in Sri Lanka and Tamil Tiger violence to be targeted by racists in Liverpool

Nov 19 2009 Crosby Herald

Crosby man escapes war in Sri Lanka and Tamil Tiger violence to be targeted by racists in Liverpool

A CROSBY man who fled civil war in Sri Lanka to start a new life in Britain is being targeted at work by a gang of racist thugs.

A van belonging to Nathan Yogeswaran, who owns two Londis businesses in Aintree, has been firebombed and he has been subjected to years of hate crime intimidation by a gang of local youths.

Last week vandals slashed the tyres on his Ford transit van parked outside his Longmoor Lane business and hurled a brick at his shop.

In 2006 Nathan feared for his life when arsonists set fire to the van parked yards from his Londis on Warbreck Moor while he slept in the flat above the shop.

And the drug smoking gang amuse themselves by calling Nathan a 'Paki', and often hurl the racist slur at him in public.

Nathan, who fled the bloody war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, won political asylum in 1994 and today lives in Crosby with his wife Lidyah, son Dillan, eight, and baby daughter Olivia, two. He grew up in the northern Tamil Tiger stronghold of Valvettithurai, and witnessed the human consequences of the government’s counter insurgency against the guerrilla army.