COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa celebrated his first year in office on Sunday by laying the foundation for a new international airport in his hometown district of Hambantota, even as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a pro-Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) organisation, appealed to him to ensure essential supplies to displaced people in the eastern Vaharai region.

Mr. Rajapaksa laid the foundation stone for a $125 million international terminal at a small airport at Weerawila, 260 km south of Colombo. The airport, the second of its kind in a country whose mainstay is tourism, is geared to handle two million passengers a year.

"We are building this second international airport so that A380 planes could land here," Mr. Rajapaksa said in a nationally-televised ceremony. Mr. Rajapaksa said 180 ships on an average pass Hambantota at the southern end of the island.

Separately, the TNA parliamentary group leader R. Sampanthan wrote to Mr. Rajapaksa saying that no food has been sent to LTTE-held Vaharai and Kathiravelli, where 38,000 internally displaced people are housed, after October 27. "You will thus appreciate that for a period of over three weeks, no food, medicine or other essentials has been sent to the people in these areas," he said in the letter.

"Imminent disaster"

"These 12,000 Tamil families comprise around 38,000 persons. Of these families, around 3,500 families are permanent residents of Vaharai and Kathiravelli, the other 8,500 families are internally displaced people from the villages in the south, southeast and southwest of the adjoining Trincomalee district. These persons are facing malnutrition, disease and starvation. A grave humanitarian disaster is imminent," the letter said.

It said that after the TNA delegation met Mr. Rajapaksa on November 17, ten lorry loads of food were sent from the Batticaloa Kachcheri to Vaharai and Kathiravelli, along with the Divisional Secretary of the area. "The lorries were stopped at Navalladdy, Cobra Bridge, south of Maankerni Army checkpoint by the Armed Forces, and directed to return," it said. The letter also claimed that the military wanted steps to evacuate people living in the area.

The TNA also alleged that Sri Lanka Army (SLA) personnel killed four students of the Agriculture Farm School in Thandikulam, Vavuniya, in "execution style" on the morning of November 18.

Separately, TamilNet claimed that SLA and LTTE exchanged mortar fire at Vavunathivu, 5 km southwest of Batticaloa town and Kommathurai and Black Bridge near Batticaloa on Saturday.

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