Category: Politics

COLOMBO, Aug 11, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan troops shelled Tamil Tiger positions in the northern peninsula of Jaffna Friday shortly after launching air strikes elsewhere in the island, the guerrillas said.The military began firing artillery across a de facto front line at Muhamalai in Jaffna, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) military spokesman […]

COLOMBO, Aug 11, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tigers Friday warned of a humanitarian crisis after 42,000 people were displaced by a surge in violence that has left Sri Lanka’s truce in tatters, as fighting erupted on two new fronts. There were similar gatherings elsewhere too.” The latest fighting has been the worst in Sri Lanka […]

KANTALAI, Sri Lanka, Aug 10, 2006 (AFP) – Doctor Iranthi de Silva has worked for 15 hours straight, battling fatigue and stress as casualties in Sri Lanka’s strife-torn northeast mounted Thursday. A brief lull in the chaotic, makeshift emergency room at the Kantalai Base Hospital allowed her to sit down. But the distant wailing of […]

KANTALAI, Sri Lanka, Aug 10, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan war planes bombed Tamil Tiger positions as the two sides shelled each other around a disputed waterway near here Thursday, leaving at least two soldiers dead and 26 wounded. “We are on a defensive operation,” spokesman Upali Rajapakse said. “We had to retaliate when our […]

KANTALAI, Sri Lanka, Aug 10, 2006 (AFP) – Sri Lankan warplanes bombed Tiger positions as fighting broke out again near a disputed waterway in the troubled northeast Thursday, leaving more than 50 people dead according to the rebels. Some 30,000 people who fled their homes last week because of fighting between troops and the Tigers […]

Aug 9, 2006 (AFP) – Tamil Tiger rebels are insisting that truce monitors from EU countries quit Sri Lanka despite efforts by peace broker Norway to persuade them to drop their demand, the government said Wednesday.Norway’s top peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer told the government that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were demanding monitors […]

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 […]

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 […]