Widow of aid worker appeals for truth about Sri Lanka massacre

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 11, 2006 (AFP) - S. Ganesh was a 16-year veteran aid worker who had followed Sri Lanka's Tamil insurgency since it began, so his wife thought little of his routine trip near a conflict zone last week. But six days after he left his modest home on July 31, his body and that of his 26-year-old daughter, Kavitha, were found among those of 17 aid workers massacred by unknown gunmen in the northeastern town of Muttur -- the center of heavy fighting between troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"The last time I saw him, he managed to have breakfast with me, something which he does not do every day," his widow Sivanaswara, 50, told AFP as she slumped crying on the cold floor of the family's unfinished house.

"He was a good husband and father, always giving everything for his family.

He worked hard and loved to help people.

His work that gave us so much, also took him away from us," she said through an interpreter, relatives hovering in the background as her three surviving children sought to calm her.

The Tigers and the government have blamed each other for the deaths of the mostly Tamil aid workers.

But even as an official inquiry involving international experts is