SLAF jet exploded over Mullaiththeevu

A Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bomber was shot down in Mullaiththeevu on Friday at 11:25 a.m., civilians sources in Ira'naippaalai told TamilNet. Several civilians saw the jet explode in mid-air as it was beginning an attack run towards an unidentified locality. A huge plume of smoke followed after the flaming debris fell to earth, they said. The LTTE is yet to comment on the attack. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) spokesman Wing commander Janaka Nanayakara has denied the report that one of their aircraft was shot down in Vanni. The civilians observers could not say in whose controlled area the wreckage had fallen. The Sri Lankan army (SLA) is locked in fierce clashes with the LTTE in areas west of Puthukkudiyiruppu.The civilians could not identify the aircraft type - SLAF operates Israeli built Kfirs and Mig-27s – and could not say what had brought the plane down. Defence writers observing Sri Lanka have long said the Tigers do not have surface-to-air missiles (SAMs).The civilian sources in Ira'naippaalai said, however, that the SLAF, which continuously attacked Mullaiththeevu stopped flying over Vanni for 3 days after the LTTE launched an air raid against SLAF installations in Colombo last Friday night.Sri Lanka claimed that both LTTE aircraft were shot down Friday before the pilots dropped their bombs and that one plane flew into the Inland Revenue building after being hit by anti-aircraft fire.The LTTE said their pilots, who were earlier awarded with Neelap Puli Viruthu (The Blue Tiger Award) for five consecutive and successful flight operations of attack, were on a Black Air Tiger mission and gave military rank of Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel to the pilots.

Slave camp suspected in Kilinochchi hospital building

A slave camp consisting male and female members 'chosen' from the fleeing civilians by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) is reportedly setup in the abandoned Kilnochchi hospital building, reported TamilNet correspondent in Vanni, citing unverified information reaching Mullaiththeevu from males who escaped from the camp. According to the sources, men are kept at the downstairs for forced labour and women kept in the upstairs for abuse by the SLA soldiers who are on temporary leave. Wailing and screaming of women are commonly heard from the upstairs, the sources revealed. The screening of the civilians who fled took place at two centres, in Visuvamadu and in Kilinochchi. Many youngsters were reportedly missing during the screening process. Parents who asked the military authorities about the their children missing at the time of screening were not given with any answer. When the UN official John Holmes visited an internment camp in Vavuniyaa last week, a woman inmate complained to him about a missing son who was taken by the SLA soldiers. But, the accompanying Sri Lankan Minister of Resettlement, Rishard Badurdeen, translated the complaint to Mr. Holmes that the woman was referring to her son taken by the Tigers. A few days ago, reports of a top man directing the war giving a free hand to the soldiers about captured civilians, leaked from the army sources themselves.

Prominent Tamil Editor abducted in Colombo, later claimed 'arrested'

Armed persons and men in police uniform who arrived in three white vans Thursday morning abducted Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, 58, the prominent editor of Jaffna-based Uthayan daily and Colombo-based Chudaroli, eyewitnesses told TamilNet. The abduction comes six days after Mr. Vithyatharan was grilled by the Sri Lankan Terrorist Investigation Department (TID). The TID had questioned him Sunday for six hours on news and views that appeared in his papers on Sri Lanka Army (SLA) attacks on civilians in Vanni and about his interactions with the officials of the Tigers in the past. Police spokesman Gunasekara, who first said that the editor was abducted by unidentified men, hours later claimed that he had been arrested.
The 'abduction' has taken place around 9:45 a.m. at Mahinda Parlour in Galkissa (Mount Lavinia) on Galle Road while Mr. Vithyatharan was attending a funeral of a close relative.Three of the armed men were in Police uniform and two in civil. "When relations tried to prevent him from being taken away the armed men intimidated them, pushed them and took Vithyatharan away," according to a note from the Chief Editor of Uthayan. Eyewitnesses said one of the white van was bearing registration number HX-0640.The Deputy Chief of US Embassy in Colombo, James R. Moore, who visited Jaffna two weeks ago, had a meeting with the editorial staff of Uthayan, which is functioning under trying conditions for more than two years.

Mr. Vithyatharan is the Editor-in-Chief of Colombo based Chudaroli and editor of Uthayan, published in Jaffna. Both the papers have faced threats and attacks in recent years. In May 2006, armed paramilitary gunmen who entered the office of the Jaffna daily Uthayan, opened fire killing two staff, including the daily's marketing manager, and causing injuries to two staffers.

Statement diplomacy of EU

Significantly deviating from its earlier position of justifying war on 'terrorism', the EU Council Conclusions on Sri Lanka, Monday, stressed the need for Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the LTTE to comply with ‘provisions of international humanitarian law and principles of the laws of war’, treating them as equal parties engaged in war. Taking this stance, the EU called for an immediate Ceasefire. The EU also reiterated its intention to send a Troika as soon as possible. However, the rest of the EU conclusions are the usual rhetoric, ending with the never implemented GSP+investigation on Sri Lanka, political observers said. Full text of the EU Statement follows:Council Conclusions on SRI LANKA2925th GE ERAL AFFAIRS Council meetingBrussels, 23 February 2009The Council adopted the following conclusions:
"
The EU has been following closely developments in Sri Lanka. The EU is deeply concerned about the evolving humanitarian crisis and vast number of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) trapped by the fighting in northern Sri Lanka, as well as the continuing reports of high civilian casualties. To prevent the loss of civilian life, the EU stresses the need for the provisions of international humanitarian law and the principles of the laws of war to be respected by parties to a conflict. The EU calls on the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to comply with these laws.
The EU calls for an immediate cease-fire thereby providing for the establishment of full and unrestricted access, allowing humanitarian aid to be safely delivered and allowing civilians to leave the conflict area. The EU condemns the LTTE's use of violence and intimidation to prevent civilians from leaving the conflict area.
The EU urges the Sri Lankan Government to ensure that the temporary camps for IDPs and the screening process for access to them are in compliance with international standards and that independent monitoring be allowed. The UN, the ICRC, and other humanitarian organizations need to have full access to these camps. These above conditions must be met for the EU to be in a position to provide the required humanitarian assistance.
he EU remains convinced that the long standing conflict in Sri Lanka cannot be resolved by military means. A military defeat of the LTTE will only reemphasize the need to find a political solution in order to ensure a lasting peace. The EU recalls the Co-Chairs Statement issued on 03/02/09 and reiterates its intention to send a Troika as soon as possible.
The EU calls on the LTTE to lay down its arms and to renounce terrorism and violence once and for all, end the inhuman use of child soldiers and forced recruitment, and participate in a political process to achieve a just and lasting solution. The EU calls on the authorities of Sri Lanka to engage in an inclusive political process, which addresses the legitimate concerns of all communities.
The EU remains deeply concerned about grave violations of human rights, in particular the cases of enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings as well as harassments, intimidations, attacks on the media and human rights defenders and the climate of impunity. The EU calls on the Sri Lankan authorities to take decisive action to tackle human rights abuses, to guarantee press freedom and to disarm paramilitary groups in Government controlled areas. The EU views with concern the draft ‘Prohibition of Forcible Conversions’ bill.
The EU underlines the importance of the Sri Lankan authorities to cooperate in the GSP+ investigation into the effective implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of the Child."

Ceasefire, solution first; laying down arms irrelevant: LTTE appeals to Co-chairs, UN

Urging International Community to effect a ceasefire and initiate a political solution as a priority than insisting LTTE to lay down arms, the Political Head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), B. Nadesan, made an appeal Sunday to the heads of the Co-chairs countries saying that "when a permanent political solution is reached for the Tamil people, with the support and the guarantee of the international community, the situation will arise where there will be no need for the arms of the LTTE." The LTTE's appeal is made at a time when media reports from Colombo indicate an initiative from the Tokyo Co-chairs to evacuate the civilians of Vanni and hand them over to the Colombo government.

LTTE's Political Head B. Nadesan
Earlier, the Tokyo Co-chairs urged the LTTE to discuss with the Government of Sri Lanka the modalities for ending hostilities, including the laying down of arms. Colombo ruled out all possibilities of entering into any negotiation with the LTTE. "The world should take note that calls for the LTTE to lay down its arms and surrender is not helpful for resolving the conflict," wrote Mr. Nadesan."The LTTE has [earlier] taken part in numerous peace efforts. No one insisted then that the LTTE should lay down its arms," Nadesan said in his letter. Expecting the LTTE to lay down arms without political solution is degrading human struggle for freedom and amounts to congratulating genocide, he said. The letter was addressed to Barack Obama, the president of the United States, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, the Security Council of the UN, Jens Stoltenberg, the prime minister of Norway and Taro Aso, the prime minister of Japan. Full text of the letter follows:22 February 2009Expressing the Tamil position to the International CommunityAs the political representatives of the Tamil people, who are daily facing danger of genocide, we wish to put some information before the international community. Before expressing our views on the partiality in the messages that the international community wishes to convey to the two sides (Sri Lanka Government-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), we wish to state some basic historical facts about our liberation struggle.Tamil people are a nation in the island of Sri Lanka. The contiguous north-east part of the island is the traditional homeland of the Tamil people. For more than fifty years, the Sri Lankan Governments have attempted to suppress and oppress this ethnic community that has the right to nationhood and self determination. In this attempt, it has confiscated their land and committed genocidal attacks on this community. The atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan Government on the Tamil people, whom it claims to be its own people, are blatant Sate Terrorism.The Tamil community has been waging a struggle against this State Terrorism for more than fifty years.At the start, for almost 25 years, this struggle with the aim to achieving self-determination was non-violent.This non-violent struggle, accepted world wide as a lawful means of waging struggles, was suppressed with a lot of blood letting by the Sri Lankan Governments using its armed forces that was made up only of young men of Sinhala ethnicity.At the same time, under the pretext of ethnic-riots, many genocidal acts were committed against the Tamil people with the support of the Sri Lankan Governments. With State assistance Sinhala people were settled on land belonging to the Tamils. Tamils were also discriminated in the areas of education, job opportunities and economic development.The Sinhala-Tamil ethnic conflict was further sharpened by these oppressive actions. As the non-violent struggles of the Tamils became ineffective in the context of the violence of the Sri Lankan State, this external condition necessitated the Tamil struggle to become armed. This gave birth to the LTTE and which gave the leadership for this armed struggle.It is the Tamil people and not the LTTE that chose the political aim of the Tamil people. In the parliamentary voting of 1977, the Tamil people through their voting announced to the world their political aim. Tamil people voted for the common decision of the Tamil political parties to establish an independent state in the joint north-east part of the island, the traditional homeland of the Tamils.The LTTE took up the national duty of fulfilling the democratic verdict of the Tamil people.The liberation struggle of the Tamil people gained fame on the world stage for its military feats over the last thirty years. It achieved this through the most supreme dedication that could be expected of liberation fighters.Whenever the LTTE had the upper hand militarily, the Sri Lankan ruling party pretending to find a political solution came for peace talks. But, once finding the time space to strengthen its armed forces, the Sri Lankan ruling party disrupted the peace talks and again created the conditions for war. The Sri Lankan Governments have staged this drama of deceiving the world and the Tamil people starting from the very first talks, after the launch of the armed struggle, in Thimbu in 1985 till the 2002 ceasefire agreement and the following five years of peace talks under Norway's facilitation.With Norway's facilitation and the support of the Co-Chair countries, three important agreements were signed between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE. The Sri Lankan Governments rejected all three agreements, the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, the Post Tsunami Operations Management Structure, and Secretariat for Immediate Humanitarian and Rehabilitation for North East for the development of North East, dealt the final blow for peace.The world knows how the Sri Lankan Government ignored the repeated calls of the international community to not seek a solution through war but to seek a political solution through talks.No one except the LTTE had identified correctly the stance of the Sri Lankan State on the Sinhala-Tamil ethnic conflict. The LTTE has been saying for a long time that the Sri Lankan Governments have continued to seek a military solution to the conflict and they will never find a political solution to the conflict. The Sri Lankan Government put forward its stance against a political solution and for a military solution in a style appealing to the international community as war on terrorism.Just like how it formulated the liberation struggle of the Tamils as terrorism, it also used the pretext of "security reasons" to expel some humanitarian agencies and journalists. If any western diplomat or journalist dares to say that the Sinhala armed forces are violating the rights of the Tamil civilians, they are immediately categorized as "White Tigers" or terrorists. The people of the world are watching the tolerance exhibited towards the atrocities of the Sri Lankan State just because of its status as a "State" and the rejection of the just struggle of the LTTE just because it does not have the status of a 'State".From Hitler's government to Rwandan government to Sudan government, it is the governments that have been committing genocide. Sri Lankan Government is also committing numerous genocides against the Tamils. This genocide history that started in 1956 has expanded today. More than 200,000 people have already been killed in this genocidal history since 1956.The international community, though it is hesitant to support the political aspirations of the Tamil people for an independent state, it must re-examine our point that an independent state is the only permanent solution to the Tamil-Sinhala conflict. Tamil people are frustrated and dejected after long years of massacres by the Sinhala armed forces and the Sinhala State.The confidence of the Tamil people for living together has been destroyed by their huge losses, their untold miseries, and their haunting memories. This will never permit a peaceful life of equality between the Tamils and Sinhalese within Sri Lanka.This is the ethno-political reality of this island. Brutal acts are being committed in Vanni at present further solidifying this ethno-political reality.Weapons like artillery and multi-barrel launcher that are used by combatants against each other in war are used by the Sri Lankan armed forced on the Tamil civilians, and their IDP camps. Women, children and old people are getting killed, maimed and injured in thousands by these attacks.For past few weeks from 50 to 100 Tamil civilians are daily getting killed by such attacks by the Sri Lankan armed forces. Already more than 2000 civilians have been killed and more than 5000 have been injured. It is painful to see the world maintaining silence on this immense human suffering as if it is amused by what is going on.The Tamils of Tamil Eelam are facing the worst genocide of the 21st century.In this situation, the LTTE is ready to accept the calls for a ceasefire issued by the international community with the good intention of ending the human suffering. The LTTE desires that this effort for a ceasefire to grow further into peace talks to seek a political solution to the ethnic conflict.The world should take note that calls for the LTTE to lay down its arms and surrender is not helpful for resolving the conflict.It is the political reality that the arms of the LTTE are the protective shield of the Tamil people and their tool for political liberation.The LTTE has taken part in numerous peace efforts. No one insisted then that the LTTE should lay down its arms.The protection of the Tamil people is dependent on the arms of the LTTE. When a permanent political solution is reached for the Tamil people with the support and the guarantee of the international community the situation will arise where there will be no need for the arms of the LTTE.Expecting the LTTE to lay down the arms, when the Tamil people are facing a horrendous genocide - and in the absence of any efforts to find a political solution is degrading the centuries of human struggle for freedom. At the same time it also appears to be congratulating the Sri Lankan Government on its genocidal war.Therefore, the LTTE appeals to the international community, to take actions to stop the genocidal attacks on the Tamil people rather than call for the laying down of the arms of the LTTE. International community should apply pressure of the Sri Lankan Government to seek not a military but a political solution to the ethnic conflict.The international community must do everything in its power to bring a ceasefire so that the miseries of the Tamils in Vanni are brought to an end and they are protected and the food and medicine requirements for them are fulfilled.We also wish to inform the international community that we are ready to discuss, co-operate, and work together in all their efforts to bring an immediate ceasefire and work towards a political settlement. Yours SincerelyB NadesanHead of the Political Wing of the LTTE

SLA artillery fire hits new 'safety zone', 108 killed, 200 wounded

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched indiscriminate artillery barrage into the newly announced 'safety zone' killing at least 108 civilians and causing injuries to more than 200, according to initial details from the medical sources in the area. Every shell that hit the area seemed to have caused casualties, said a doctor at the makeshift hospital at Maaththa'lan. More than 100,000 people have been forced into a plain and narrow strip along the coast, north of Mullaiththeevu town, without potable water. Meanwhile, relentless artillery barrage by the SLA has boxed Theavipuram and Va'l'lipunam villages within the old zone, trapping thousands of civilians preventing them from moving to the new 'safe zone'. The artillery barrage lasted from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. and targeted Maaththa'lan, Pokka'nai, Mu'l'livaaykkaal within the safety zone and Ira'naippalai.Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) fighter jets have also attacked Ira'naippaalai, the new centre for humanitarian and basic facilities, located between the new and old safety zones. On Tuesday, at least 15 people, fleeing from the old 'safety zone' towards Maaththa'lan, were killed in artillery barrage.

Massive air attack on fleeing civilians, more than 100 feared killed

More than 100 civilians were feared killed Wednesday around 12:50 p.m. when four Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers dropped cluster bombs on Internally Displaced Civilians at Aananthapuram in Ira'naippaalai, according to initial reports from medical sources. More than 70 wounded were rushed to hospital so far and 10 of the victims have died on the way at Maaththa'lan hospital. Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched an artillery barrage blocking transportation of wounded to hospitals. Doctors in the makeshift hospital told TamilNet that unless the seriously wounded were not evacuated by the ICRC to Trincomalee or elsewhere, many would die at the hospital. There is no medicine at the hospital as Colombo has refused to allow medical supplies to the hospitals since December 2008. Medical sources said at least 50 civilians were killed in one of the bombardments but expressed fear that the death toll could be more than 100 and that around 300 could be wounded. Maaththa'lan hospital is already overcrowded with the injured civilians.The latest bombardment came at a time where the internally displaced people were moving from one location to another to escape from the indiscriminate artillery shelling and multi barrel rocket attack.At least 160 people were killed within the last 10 hours in Mullaiththeevu said a doctor at Maththa'lan hospital.

Civilian Safety is the top priority - Defence Secretary

Tamil Genocide In Srilanka

Papal Envoy here to view situation in north.

On the request of Jaffna Bishop Rt. Rev Thomas Soundaranayagam expressing for a safer passage to the civilians to move from the war torn areas, the Envoy of the Pope, Papal Nuncio Rt.Rev Mario Zenari visited Jaffna recently.
Archbishop Zenari who visited Jaffna during the weekend met the Jaffna Bishop, priests, nuns as well as IDPs while he was there. Archbishop had expressed his concern about the situation there and expressed his solidarity towards them. He also conducted mass while he was there accompanied by the Jaffna Bishop at the Jaffna Cathedral yesterday. He said a large number of people had come to cleared areas and are in churches according to the reports coming from Colombo. Archbishop Zenari is to submit a report to the Vatican on the situation. He is expected back in Colombo today.

Request made by the Denmark and Swiss Ambassadors to visit North, rejected.

Government has rejected the request made by the Ambassadors of Denmark and Swiss to visit Northern Sri Lanka. Both Ambassadors decided to visit the north, to find the situations of the public.
Meanwhile another request made by an International Media to visit Vanni too was rejected by the Sri Lankan government. Government higher official stated, some sources are trying to collect news against the Sri Lankan government, by visiting Vanni, hence their request was turn down.

Lasantha Wickrematunge - Sri Lanka's hero editor

Just a few hours after Lasantha Wickrematunge was shot dead in a busy Colombo street last week his elder brother, Lal, rushed to the pioneering journalist's home.
Lasantha, the editor of Sri Lanka's The Sunday Leader newspaper, had warned Lal a few days earlier that the Government would try to kill him, and told him about a cupboard containing all his sensitive documents.
Rifling through it, Lal piled the papers into a plastic bag. Only later, as he read through them, did he realise that one was the handwritten draft of an obituary that Lasantha had prepared for himself, explicitly accusing the Government of assassinating him.
That extraordinary obituary, published in the The Sunday Leader, is now making waves around the world and spotlighting the assault on the media that has accompanied Sri Lanka's military campaign against the Tamil Tiger rebels since 2006.
“When finally I am killed, it will be the Government that kills me,” said the obituary entitled And Then They Came For Me. “Murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges.”
Lal told The Times that Leader staff had updated the obituary and added the title, but that 60 to 70 per cent of it was Lasantha's, including those ominous lines. “There were no material changes,” he said. “He'd told me he felt this was the time they would go for him, during the euphoria about the military progress.”
Under President Rajapaska the Army has made unprecedented gains against the Tigers, whose 25-year struggle for an ethnic Tamil homeland has claimed more than 70,000 lives.
The army captured Kilinochchi, the Tigers' capital, on January 2, and is now on the brink of a conventional military victory as troops close in on the rebels' last outpost in Mullaitivu.
Lasantha, however, was one of a small group of critics who accused the Government of systematically eroding civil liberties since a 2002 truce unravelled four years later.
A member of the ethnic Sinhalese majority, he also criticised the Government for failing to find a lasting political solution to address the Tamil minority's concerns.
“He was a lone dissenting voice,” said Sonali Samarasinghe, Lasantha's second wife, whom he married three weeks ago. “He was perceived as denigrating the Government's so-called victory.”
Lasantha knew the risks: he had survived other attacks, including the burning of his newspaper's printing press in 2007, and was used to regular death threats. Dilrukshi Handunnetti, the Leader's investigations editor, showed The Times an envelope that he received three days before he died.
It contained half a page of his newspaper with a message in red paint daubed across a critical story on Kilinochchi's capture. “If you continue to write this, you'll be killed,” the message said.
“Throw it in the bin - who cares?” she remembers him saying. “I think he got a kick out of it.”
He was equally defiant the morning he died when he realised that he was being followed while driving to his house from his ex-wife's. His wife begged him not to drive himself to work but he insisted.
“Fear never crossed his mind,” she said. Only in the final moments before the attack did he call a doctor, who treated him and the President, to try to get a message to his erstwhile friend.
Sonali said the doctor told her later that he had called the President but could not reach him for 45 minutes. By that time Lasantha had been shot in the head at point-blank range.
“That's why he was found with his mobile phone in his hand,” said Sonali. “We were living our lives - that's what so hard. One moment we were so happy, and then there's nothing.”
Before his death, Lasantha had been locked in court battles over his stories with politicians and officials, including Gotabaya Rajapaska - the Defence Secretary and the President's brother.
Sri Lankan journalists are wary of specifying who they think killed Lasantha but Mangala Samaraweera, an opposition politician, voiced the widespread suspicion that it was the Defence Ministry or the Army. “It's an open secret that there's been a killer squad in the Defence Ministry for the last two years,” said Mr Samaraweera, who was Foreign Minister until 2006.
He, like many, questioned how Lasantha's killers could arrive and escape on motorbikes, carrying firearms, in a city with police checkpoints on almost every street. “Sri Lanka is going through one of its darkest phases,” he said. “The Government is using this war to establish an autocratic regime.”
Mr Rajapaska, who was friends with Lasantha for years, denies any role in his murder and has pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice, blaming it on “forces that will go to the farthest extremes in using terror and criminality to damage our social fabric and bring disrepute to the country”.
Journalists, rights activists and diplomats say that the President is guilty, at best, of tolerating such attacks. At least 14 journalists and media workers have been killed here since 2006, according to Amnesty International. Another 20 have fled overseas after death threats.
Last Tuesday gunmen attacked the headquarters of MTV, a private broadcaster critical of the Government, and destroyed its control room with grenades. None of these cases has been solved so far.
The United States, the European Union and other international bodies have all expressed concern but diplomats admit that they have little sway over the Government.
Jurgen Weerth, the German Ambassador, summed up the frustration in a eulogy at Lasantha's funeral, for which he was reprimanded by Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry. “Maybe we should have spoken before this,” he said. “Today it is too late.”

SLA traps hundreds of civilians in safety zone border

Around 4,000 civilians, fleeing intense shelling by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) have been caught by the SLA that entered a bordering area of Chuthanthirapuram safety zone Friday, according to initial reports. The SLA soldiers opened fire on the civilians, instructing them to walk deeper into SLA controlled territories carrying white flags with them, according to youths who managed to escape. There were reports of deaths and injuries among civilians. Exact casualty figures were not known. Civil authorities in SLA controlled areas are yet to provide details on what has happened to the civilians.

Missing SLA soldiers' parents urge ICRC to approach LTTE

Parents of missing Sri Lankan soldiers this week urged the ICRC to approach the LTTE to check whether their sons were in Tiger custody as reports appeared in Colombo media of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) overrunning an LTTE detention camp in Visuvamadu area. The association of missing soldiers parents, based in Kandy, has sent a letter to the ICRC in Colombo urging it to take up the issue with the LTTE as they feared 750 Sri Lankan soldiers were in LTTE custody. "We wish to bring to your notice that on the 3 of February 2009, the Sri Lankan army has run over a LTTE detention camp in Vishwamadu area," the letter to ICRC said. "We strongly believe that this detention camp, had more than 750 Sri Lankan service personnel in detention until it was run over by the army. The photographs which are displayed in the Sri Lankan army website bear evidence of the same."The association has urged the ICRC to take immediate action to secure the release of the release of the soldiers in LTTE custody.

More than 180 killed in Sri Lankan bombardment within 48 hours

More than 120 civilians were killed in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shelling Friday and Saturday inside the safety zone in Chuthanthirapuram, Iruddumadu, Udaiyaarkaddu and Theavipuram within the last 48 hours. At least 59 civilians were killed Friday and more than 62 killed on Saturday. Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombed Puthukkdiyiruppu (PTK) Ponnampalam hospital killing 61 patients on Friday. Casualty figures from SLA shelling in Puthukkudiyiruppuu were not available. Civilians were seen moving towards PTK on Paranthan Road amidst heavy shelling that targeted the road on Friday. At least 8 dead bodies were seen along the road Saturday morning. A bus was seen abandoned after it was damaged by shelling. Two tractors had got fire in the shelling. Four bodies were recovered along Vaakeesan Road, the alternative road to PTK from Udaiyaarkaddu.An indiscriminate artillery barrage, deploying artillery-fitted cluster shells, claimed the lives of 9 civilians Friday night after 11:45 p.m. on Theavipuram inside the safety zone. The shelling also hit the makeshift hospital in Chuthanthirapuram, killing an employee of the hospital Saturday.

SLAF bombs Ponnampalam hospital, 60 patients feared killed

Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers on Friday bombed and fully destroyed Ponnampalam Memorial hospital in Puthukkudiyiruppu (PTK), killing scores and wounding many, according to initial reports received from PTK.
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched indiscriminate artillery barrage on the hospital, totally disabling the rescue of the surviving patients. Initial reports said 40 patients warded there were killed, but latest reports put the casualty figure at 60, which is yet to be verified by the hospital authorities. The bombardment comes after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urging the warring parties not to attack medical facilities both within and outside the safety zone following the claim by SL Defence Secretary Gotabhaya that hospitals outside safety zone were legitimate targets. Ponnampalam memorial hospital is a modern non-governmental medical facility which started functioning in 1996. It was named after Dr Ponnampalam who was well known for his dedicated services in Jaffna district during the war years."Fixed establishments and mobile medical units of the Medical Service may in no circumstances be attacked, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict," states the First Geneva Convention.Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that the civilian hospitals organized to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack, but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.Sri Lanka (Ceylon) is a signatory to the First, Second and Third Geneva Conventions and it ratified the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, by accession to it, on 23.02.1959.