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Tigers allege shelling of refugee camps

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: A statement by the Sri Lanka military from Batticaloa and Trincomalee said Tamil Tigers had fired heavy artillery shells on December 7 at a Sinhalese village, which is approximately 15 km from Mahindapura army camp, forcing thousands of Sinhalese civilians to flee in panic.

"The distance to the villages shelled from the military bases clearly indicates that the Tigers had intentionally resorted to this brutal act of killing and injuring the civilians by the heavy shelling at random".

It alleged that the shelling had so far killed six civilians and injured 16 including 10 school children. The military claimed that the Tigers were detaining a large number of Tamil civilians of Palchenai village by force in two schools, which are very close to their artillery positions.

"Retaliation is the only option left for the security forces when the Tigers resort to shelling civilian villages and military installations in the area. The security forces possess state-of-the-art mortar locating radars, which indicates the Tiger gun or mortar positions to the last 10 metres when they are being fired." The statement said a large number of LTTE cadres were killed in the confrontation that took place at close quarters and a large number were reportedly injured. The ground troops were able to destroy two mortar locations, along with guns.

TamilNet quoted the LTTE's military spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayan as saying that 10 internally displaced people, who fled artillery bombing in Palchenai and Vammivedduvan in Vaharai region to Kandalady Government School, were killed and more than 15 wounded when army-fired artillery shells hit the school on Sunday morning.

It said navy gunboats were also engaged in firing shells towards densely populated refugee camps.

Meanwhile, a Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation official in Vaharai told TamilNet all the five refugee camps in the area were being targeted by artillery shelling, forcing civilians to flee.

He said more than 7,000 civilians were gathered at the hospital site in Vaharai on Sunday morning as TRO volunteers buried six bodies brought from Kandalay.

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