SIKKAL, Tamil Nadu, 6 January 2005 — Ten-year-old Ramesh Kumar can’t tell anyone what happened to him or how his mum and dad died. Neighbors told social workers his parents were killed when the Dec. 26 tsunami swept through their village in southern India. But Ramesh just sits on a stool at a makeshift orphanage, holding his injured hand, his eyes locked wide in a tragic stare of fear and shock. At any attempt to talk to him, he cries and turns his head away.

Children are the biggest victims of the disaster. They make up a third — 50,000 - of the dead. But tens of thousands more, from Europeans holidaying on Thai beaches, to the sons and daughters of poor Indian fishermen, have been orphaned. Thousands more have only one surviving parent who cannot look after them alone. Schools, the only hope many Asian children have for a better life, have been wiped out and books and other materials lost.

UNICEF estimates 1.5 million children have been affected. “It is hard to imagine the fear, confusion and desperation of children who have seen enormous waves wash away their worlds and cast dead bodies upon the shore,” UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said.

“Children have lost all semblance of the life they knew — from parents, siblings and friends to homes, schools and neighborhoods. They are in desperate need of care. Children belong with families rather than in institutional care.” There are also reports around the region of men trying to claim child survivors they are not related to.

In Sikkal, local authorities, overwhelmed by the scale of the tragedy, have commandeered an ordinary house and turned it into an emergency orphanage. They have crammed 30 children into the unfurnished home and more are arriving every day — nine yesterday alone. There are no toys and nothing to do, the best the social workers can offer is a dry floor, simple bandages and three meals a day.

“Apart from Ramesh, they are all physically fit — it’s the emotional trauma they need help with,” says volunteer Sureshna Saha, who flew and drove in from distant New Delhi. “It’s horrible. It’s always worse when it’s children.”

Fifteen-year-old Sitha hovers protectively around her sister, Sitha Lakshmi, 10, and eight-year-old brother, Amitha. “I’m the head of the family now,” she says firmly, holding back tears. “I have to look after them. Mummy wanted them to get educated and I have to make that happen now.”

Their father, a fisherman, and mother, who sold the fish, were killed in the tsunami. Sitha Lakshmi and Amitha climbed onto a neighbor’s house. Sitha was about to be swept away by the fierce waters when someone plucked her to safety.

As for fishermen of the southern Nagapattinam district, their houses rubble, their boats destroyed, members lost from almost each and every family, they tentatively pushed a few boats into the sea yesterday to resume the only livelihood they have known.

The first boats of Akkaraipettai village went out Tuesday. There were seven boats the Indian Army had helped repair. Army soldiers stood by to give the fishermen confidence, their memories still dark with the ravages wrought by the tsunami.