SLN rescues Tamil refugees from Mannar sandbank

[TamilNet, Monday, 04 April 2005, 11:44 GMT]
Mannar Magistrate Mr.N.M.M.Abdullah Monday ordered the civil authorities to send twenty three Sri Lankan Tamil refugees to their own villages when they were produced in court on a report that Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) had rescued them from a sandbank in midsea off Talaimannar Sunday around noon, legal sources said.

A group of twenty four Sri Lankan Tamil refuges left in boats belonging to Indian fishermen Saturday night around 7.30 p.m. from Ramanathapuram in South India towards Mannar. However Indian boatmen had left them Sunday early morning on a sandbank in midsea saying that they had arrived Mannar shore. But later refugees found they were left on a sandbank, refugee sources said.

One boy among the group of refugees had been badly injured when the Indian boatmen forcibly threw him on the sandbank, sources said.

A SLN patrolling vessel Sunday around 12 noon rescued the refugees struggling for survival on the sandbank and handed them to Talaimannar police. The Police immediately admitted the injured boy at the Talaimannar hospital and the rest- four children, seven women and twelve men were kept in the police station Sunday night and produced in Mannar courts Monday morning, legal sources said.