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Conflicting versions of sea battle

B. Muralidhar Reddy

COLOMBO: The navy and the Tamil Tigers gave conflicting versions of a sea battle in Mannar waters on Friday.

According to the navy, its Inshore Patrol Craft (IPCs) confronted an LTTE suicide boat in Baththalangunduwa Sea. The boat, which came along with four more LTTE boats, was destroyed.

The confrontation occurred when the IPCs intercepted them at a location 5 nautical miles off Baththalangunduwa, northwestern coast. It said one sailor suffered minor injuries and one IPC was slightly damaged. The other LTTE boats managed to escape towards Silawathura area.

However, TamilNet quoted the Tigers military spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayan as saying seven navy personnel were killed and a navy gunboat was sunk after the clash when three gunboats blocked a Sea Tiger patrol. "Our Patrol Unit Commander reported seven enemy casualties after the encounter which lasted for 15 minutes." The clash took place inside LTTE's territorial waters, and there were no casualties on their side, he claimed.

The military quoted fleeing Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from the Thadchanaamar'uthamadu un-liberated area in Mannar as saying urgent humanitarian intervention was needed to stop a "relentless humanitarian catastrophe" perpetrated by the LTTE.

It quoted an unnamed NGO aid worker as saying a grim atmosphere prevailed in the Tiger-held areas. "I was astonished to witness such deteriorating state of life for the people who were majority Tamils. Most of the IDPs in pocket camps are being forcibly dragged out especially the youth and the underage children," the aid worker was quoted as saying. The military alleged that the LTTE had threatened NGO aid workers to restrict supply of water to the IDP shelters in the areas two km north-west of Madhu.

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