Mullaitivu
District is one of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka, the second level
administrative division of the country. The capital of the district is the town
of Mullaitivu. Parts of present day Mullaitivu District was part
of the pre-colonial Jaffna kingdom. The district then came under Portuguese,
Dutch and British control. In 1815 the British gained control of the entire
island of Ceylon. They divided the island into three ethnic based
administrative structures: Low Country Sinhalese, Kandyan Sinhalese and Tamil.
The district, which was then part of Vanni District, was part of the Tamil
administration. In 1833, in accordance with the recommendations of the
Colebrooke-Cameron Commission, the ethnic based administrative structures were
unified into a single administration divided into five geographic provinces. Vanni
District, together with Jaffna District and Mannar District, formed the new
Northern Province.
Vanni
District was later renamed Mullaitivu District and then Vavuniya District. The
district was colonised in the second half of the 18th century by residents from
Jaffna Peninsula, primarily from Alaveddy, Udupiddy and Navaly. At the time
that Ceylon gained independence, Vavuniya was one of the three districts
located in the Northern Province. Mullaitivu District was carved out of the
northern part of Vavuniya District together with parts of the then Jaffna
District, Mannar District and Trincomalee District in September 1978.
Mullaitivu
District was under the control of rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for
many years during the civil war. The district was recaptured by the Sri Lankan
military in early 2009.
