3 civilians, including child, killed in SLA shelling in Vanni

A 5-month-old child, sleeping inside an IDP hut near Thakarap-Pillaiyaar temple on Hudson Road in Vaddakkachchi, was decapitated by a shrapnel of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shell Saturday morning around 9:30. 26-year-old mother of the child was wounded in the artillery barrage that targeted the IDP settlement.
Meanwhile, two males who went to their agricultural lands in Kanakapuram, a suburb of Kilinochchi town, to unearth cassava roots, were killed in SLA shelling around 11:45 a.m. A 17-year-old youth narrowly escaped death with injuries from the shelling. The child killed was Jeyarooban Ajanthan. His mother wounded in the shelling was identified as 26-year-old Jancy Rani Jeyarooban. The victims had displaced from Periyapandivirichchaan to Vaddakkachchi. One of the males killed in Kanakapuram was identified as 41-year-old Paalaiya Pulendran, a native of Kilinochchi who was displaced to Visuvamadu. The other male killed in the shelling was yet to be identified. The victims had gone to their agricultural lands to unearth cassava roots in their attempt to earn money to safeguard their families. The youth who sustained injuries at Kanakapuram was identified as Jeyakaran, from Periyakulam in Pulyampokkanai. He was being treated at Kilinochchi hospital. The dead bodies of the two males killed in Kanakapuram were brought to the hospital in Kilinochchi town and transferred to Tharmapuram. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) fighter jets bombed 6 times in Vaddakkachchi and Paranthan areas.