Eight SL Navy personnel test positive in controversial quarantine centre in Vanni

[TamilNet, Friday, 22 May 2020, 23:11 GMT]
At least eight SL Navy personnel among the five-hundred individuals brought from South to SL military-operated quarantine centre at Keappaa-pulavu of Mullaiththeevu district in the North have tested positive for COVID-19. Two SLN sailors tested positive on Thursday and six more on Friday, according to the Mullaiththeevu office of the Regional Director of Health Services. The grassroots organisations and civic representatives have condemned the SL military for converting the small building of Pilak-kudiyiruppu primary health care centre, located in an area where Tamil people have been resettling after the area was released back to the people in 2011.

Around 500 Sinhala Navy sailors and their families that were in contact with someone suspected of having COVID-19, were silently brought to Keappaa-pulavu on 18 May while the focus was on Mu'l'livaaykkaal Genocide Remembrance right across Nanthik-kadal lagoon.

The SL military brought the persons in fifteen buses, and a section of them was housed in the centre which lies in the lands released back to the people. Although the building is fenced off, the inmates were freely walking around without wearing protective masks, the residents complained.

The SL military has not informed the administrative officials at the District Secretariat or the Regional Director of Health Services about the conversion of the facility into a quarantine centre in advance.

Meanwhile, the uprooted Tamil people are still waging their continuous protest, which has surpassed one thousand days at the entrance of the SL military cantonment at Keappaa-pulavu.

The attitude of Colombo establishing quarantine centres for military personnel as well as for the people from the South stems from its occupation mindset, the protesting Tamil residents said.



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