Tigers overrun Police camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 August 2001, 03:20 GMT]
At least twenty military trained policemen were killed and 20 wounded when the Liberation Tigers attacked and destroyed the main Police station at Central Camp, Monday night, police sources in Ampara said. Seven others were reported missing in the attack, the sources said. Central Camp is a Sinhala settlement, about 35 kilometers south west of Batticaloa near the district's border with Ampara.

About one hundred policemen and home guards were manning the Police station when it came under attack around 11 p.m. Monday, according to the sources. Many deserted their posts during the first phase of the attack, the sources said.

Twenty bodies of the policemen and home guards have been recovered, the sources said.

Sources in Batticaloa said the Tigers remained at the police station till around 4.30 a.m. and withdrew after clearing the camp of all weaponry. They said the attackers came in tractors.

Eighteen wounded policemen have been admitted to the Ampara hospital. Details of LTTE casualties were not known. Two civilians were also reported killed during the heavy fighting, police sources said.

According to residents who came to Batticaloa town Tuesday afternoon from the western hinterland of the district, four bodies of the police personnel who were killed in the attack had been brought by the Tigers to Pattipallai. They said that the Tigers also had diplayed part of weapons captured from the overrun detachment.

Quoting LTTE sources in Pattipallai, they said that two Tigers were killed and six others wounded in the attack.