Pandimadu refugees arrested

[TamilNet, Saturday, 06 December 1997, 23:59 GMT]
The Sri Lankan army in the Valaichenai fishing harbour detachment 20 miles north of the Batticaloa town rounded up all the inmates of the Pandimadu refugee camp which is about two kilometers east of Valaichenai town and herded them, including women and children, to the harbour premises for interrogation.

On the way to the harbour army camp, soldiers had walked behind the refugees firing their weapons indiscriminately.

A 22 year old girl, three months pregnant and her two year old daughter were wounded in the army's firing while being herded to the SLA detachment.

The injured pregnant girl was identified as Kaneshan Thayalanayaki, originally from Usanai in the Mannanputti region. Her daughter Chandrakavi was wounded in the leg. Thayalanayaki's pregnancy was aborted as a result of the gunshot injuries she sustained.

The refugees in the Pandimadu refugee camp are mostly former residents of the Mannanputti region near Polannaruwa, which is a Sinhala majority town about eighty kilometers northwest of Batticaloa.

Tamils were massacred and driven out of the traditionally Tamil dominated town of Mannanputti and its satellite villages such as Usanai and Theevuchchenai in 1990 June - August when the Sri Lankan army moved into the district of Batticaloa.