Category: Politics

February 20, 2009 (AFP) – Security forces captured diving equipment and underwater “scooters” used by suicide bombers after heavy fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels in the island’s northeast, the defence ministry said on Friday.Troops seized the equipment after five hours of fighting at the village of Ampalavanpokkanai on Thursday, the ministry said in a statement. […]

February 20, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lankan security forces seized another village from Tamil Tiger rebels, the government said Friday, as international concern mounted about the plight of civilians caught in the shrinking war zone.Government forces established control over the village of Ampalavanpokkanai in the district of Mullaittivu on Thursday afternoon following heavy fighting, the […]

TRINCOMALEE, February 18, 2009 (AFP) – Shopkeeper Subramaniam Sudaharan says he is lucky to be alive after his two teenage sons were shot dead as the family fled Sri Lanka’s increasingly brutal war zone.What was left of the devastated family — he, his wife and a younger boy — were among 440 war-wounded evacuated from […]

February 18, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s government on Wednesday rejected fresh calls for a truce with Tamil Tigers as troops took another village from rebel control and concern mounted for civilians trapped in the war zone. Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said the government was firmly committed to wiping out “terrorism” and described the demand […]

February 17, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s cornered Tamil Tiger rebels have intensified conscription of child soldiers, some as young as 14, the United Nations agency for children said Tuesday.The Tigers have recruited more than 6,000 child soldiers since 2002, he added. UNICEF said in a statement that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) […]

February 17, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka is considering a sea evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians trapped inside its war zone, officials said on Tuesday as a government ally said there was a spike in non-combatant deaths.Some 80,000 civilians remain inside the northern Wanni region, where government troops have cornered the Tigers into […]

February 16, 2009 (AFP) – The Red Cross evacuated Monday a ferry load of 400 civilians wounded in fighting between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels. The injured and their accompanying relatives were shipped out of the conflict zone in the northeast of the island and taken for “further medical treatment,” International Committee […]

February 16, 2009 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger guerrillas have prevented tens of thousands of civilians from leaving Sri Lanka’s war zone and those trying to escape have been “shot and sometimes killed,” the United Nations said Monday. Tens of thousands of civilians in the rebel-held area were experiencing serious shortages of food, medicine, and clean […]