Tamil children massacred by CBK's Sinhala Air Force remembered in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 September 2017, 09:46 GMT]
The people of Vadamaraadchi East in Jaffna emotionally marked 22nd remembrance of Naakarkoayil school massacre on Friday. The massacre was carried out by ‘Sri Lanka’ Air Force during the times of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's (CBK) presidency in 1995. The SLAF targeted Naakarkoayil MV school by firing 8 rockets from Argentina-made Pucará ground attack aircrafts. 26 school children, aged between 08 and 17 years, and a 4-year-old child lost their lives. 20 more civilians were killed in artillery fire and air-attacks elsewhere in the village. The Catholic church at Ma'nal-kaadu was also destroyed in a separate air attack by the SLAF where 3 civilians were killed. More than 100 civilians including 42 students were injured due to air and artillery attacks that targeted innocent civilians on that fateful day.

The brutal massacre took place while the school was in session.

The 4-year-old child victim belonged to an internally displaced family that had sought shelter at the school.

The school was providing shelter for more than 400 displaced families at that time.

The Sinhala military doctrine of targeting Tamil civilians, combining both COIN (Counter-insurgency) and genocidal intentions, was conceived during the rule of CBK.

Ms Kumaratunga, who is now the chairperson of so-called Office For National Unity (ONUR) has done nothing to investigate or at the least to regret the crimes carried out by the SL military under her command as the executive president and the commander-in-chief of the three forces, the families of the victims said.



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