Category: Defense

Aug 9, 2006 (AFP) – Five people including a doctor were killed when an ambulance was caught up in a mine attack carried out by government forces, Tamil Tiger rebels said.A Claymore mine attack in the island’s central district of Kandy killed a senior police commando officer and his driver on Monday. The blast hit […]

Aug 9, 2006 (AFP) – Water flowed down a disputed canal in Sri Lanka Wednesday after peace broker Norway defused the island’s bloodiest battle in four years and averted a return to civil war, residents and officials said.Norway’s special envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer arranged for the Tamil Tiger rebels to end a water blockade at the […]

PARIS, Aug 9, 2006 (AFP) – A French charity on Wednesday demanded that the “butchers” behind the murder of 17 of its employees in Sri Lanka’s embattled northeast be brought to justice and full light shed on the killings.ACF director Benoit Miribel was to leave for Sri Lanka Wednesday to attend ceremonies commemorating the dead […]

GENEVA, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – The International Committee of the Red Cross is trying to negotiate urgent access to the area around the northeastern Sri Lankan town of Muttur, where at least 4,000 people are thought to be stranded by fighting, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.Shelter equipment and clothing for the displaced were being distributed […]

PARIS, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Seventeen employees of a French charity found dead in northeastern Sri Lanka at the weekend were all executed by gunfire, the group confirmed Tuesday, demanding that those responsible be severely punished. Following the massacre, the charity suspended its local mission to Sri Lanka, whose 15 expatriate and 224 local […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Relatives Tuesday sprinkled perfumed water and buried aid workers gunned down inside their office in strife-torn northeastern Sri Lanka, while police maintained tight security.“I just want to get his remains now and give him a decent burial. There is nothing more I can do.He is already dead.” […]

Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels lifted a water blockade Tuesday at the root of Sri Lanka’s latest bloodshed, which has officially claimed over 440 lives, as a car bomb killed three people in the capital.The fighting in the past fortnight has been the worst since the 2002 truce, which has been repeatedly […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Grief-stricken men, women and children trudge to a refugee camp after fleeing deadly fighting through ghost towns and past decomposing bodies, haunted by what they have seen.They are escaping from Sri Lanka’s troubled northeast and many do not talk, instead simply gesturing for food and water. Stunned […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Police have recovered the bodies of 17 aid workers employed by the Paris-based Charity Action Against Hunger (ACF) and autopsies were underway Tuesday, officials said.The aid agency and authorities had initially thought that 15 ACF staff were shot dead at work in the nearby coastal town of […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Slumped on the ground outside the hospital in this strife-torn Sri Lankan port town, Khanthasami Sivapaka cries for justice for his favourite daughter — one of 17 aid workers mown down by gunmen.Beside him are freshly painted maroon coffins, delivered to the Trincomalee General Hospital’s gloomy mortuary […]

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lanka troops launched fresh artillery attacks against Tamil Tigers from bases in this port city Tuesday, as grieving relatives prepared to bury aid workers killed in the conflict.An estimated 60,000 people have been killed since the Tamil insurgency began in 1972. The bodies of 17 employees […]

Aug 8, 2006 (AFP) – Three people were killed Tuesday in a bomb attack aimed at a Sri Lanka politician opposed to Tamil Tiger rebels who have been fighting a separatist insurgency here for decades, police said.The blast, which exploded in front of a girls’ school in a crowded area of the island nation’s capital […]