More than 60,000 people have been killed in the island's drawn out Tamil separatist conflict in the past three decades.
-Ian Timberlake The late Tuesday night attack, on the eve of International Press Freedom Day celebrations, left two people working in the office dead, Media Minister Anura Yapa said in a statement.
Journalists and officials initially said only one person died and three others were wounded when masked men opened fire inside the Uthayan newspaper office in Jaffna, 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Colombo.
Yapa did not give any figure for the number of injured and it was not immediately clear if one of those hurt had later died from their wounds.
The killers had demanded to see a journalist who was not on the premises of the daily which supports the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"Gunmen went inside looking for some senior reporters," an Uthayan journalist said. "They were not there, but the gunmen opened fire," he added.
Yapa sa