LONDON: Tamil women seeking shelter from the civil war in Sri Lanka were sexually abused by guards in refugee camps, a British medic has revealed. Vany Kumar, who herself was locked up behind barbed wire in the Menik Farm refugee camp for four months, told the Observer newspaper that guards gave food for sex. “Sexual abuse is something that was a common thing, that I personally saw. In the visitors’ area relatives would be on the other side of the fence and we would be in the camp. Girls came to wait for their relatives and military officers would come and touch them, and that’s something I saw,” she said. “The girls usually didn’t talk back to them, because they knew anything could happen to them. It was quite open, everyone could see the officers touching the girls.” “Tamil girls usually don’t talk about sexual abuse,, but I heard the officers were giving the women money or food in return for sex,” Kumar added.