SLA dumps dead soldiers in the stretches of Arippu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 30 January 2008, 17:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army in Mannaar, while under-reporting their casualties in the fighting, has been dumping tractor-loads of dead soldiers in the delta of Aruvi Aa'ru (Malwattu Oya), the area emptied of people after capturing it from the LTTE last year. Two Sri Lanka Army soldiers, escaping from the battlefield with the help of local residents have said that their fellow troopers killed in the battle were being dumped near a coconut palm grove at Ooral, a locality 1 km south of Aruvi Aa'ru and few kilometers east of the coastline between Arippu and Chilaavatturai.

Hundreds of wounded SLA soldiers were sent to various hospitals in the adjacent district headquarters and in the South while their fellow soldiers who died in the battlefield did not receive military honors or proper funeral, reportedly according to instructions from the top.

The dead are included in the list of deserted soldiers.

Medical sources in Mannaar, Anuradhapura and Vavuniyaa, while confirming that many wounded soldiers have been brought in for treatment, indicated that dead bodies of soldiers were brought in only rarely.

The dead bodies were transported in tractors through Uyilangku'lam junction from the battlefield to the banks of Aruvi Aa'ru.