SLA allows travelling to Batticaloa LTTE areas for limited hours

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 August 2006, 14:08 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army (SLA) Friday agreed to relax the ban on travelling for limited hours to areas held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Batticaloa district following repeated requests made by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to President Mahinda Rajapakse, TNA sources said.

Batticaloa district TNA parliamentarians S.Jeyanandamoorthy and P.Ariyanethran met with Colonel Subasinghe, Commanding Officer of the Batticaloa 233 Brigade and Karaitivu STF Senior Superintendent of Police Ranjith Perera. TNA MPs told later that SLA authorities have agreed to relax the ban for few hours for civilians to travel to and from LTTE held villages in the district.

As a first phase civilians will be allowed to travel and permission would be granted to take heavy vehicles on receipt of the orders from the Defence Ministry, army officials told TNA parliamentarians.

SLA authorities have agreed to allow ambulances to LTTE held villages to transport patients when TNA parliamentarians asked for permission to transport food relief to displaced families now sheltered in Vaharai and Vellaveli areas.

Meanwhile Mr.R.Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the TNA has requested President Mahinda Rajapakse to open all land and water routes to the LTTE held areas in Batticaloa district fully without any restriction.