Ullaik-kazhi / Ullaik-ka’li

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 March 2009, 00:15 GMT]
The backwaters of Ullam fish (Tenualosa ilisha)
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SLA attacks kill 128 civilians in 48 hours

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 01:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army short-range mortar shelling, Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) attacks and gunfire killed 96 civilians, including 19 children within the 'safety zone' Monday. 32 civilians, including 7 children were killed Sunday, according to local aid workers and medical authorities. Around 160 civilians sustained injuries on Monday when Sri Lanka Army stepped up mortar fire, RPG attacks and opened fire from the other side of the lagoon into Puthumaaththa'lan within the 'safety zone'. Increased and systematic attacks on civilians during the day time was targeting to evict civilians from the so-called safety zone, said TamilNet correspondent who visited the site of the carnage.
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Tigers seize weapons from SLFP Karuna camp in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2009, 14:14 GMT]
An armed paramilitary person was killed and two T-56 assault rifles were seized Thursday night around 11:00 p.m. when an ambush team of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) carried out a surprise attac on a building at Ku'laththumadu in Vaakaneari in Vaazhaichcheani, according to a news release by the LTTE. The building, used as an office of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was a minor camp of Karuna group, the Tigers said. Dayamohan, the Batticaloa district political head of the LTTE told TamilNet last week that Karuna group had stepped up intimidations against the civilians in Batticaloa and Ampaa'rai districts in recent times.
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LTTE urges China to consider Tamils plight at UN

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 March 2009, 07:31 GMT]
Political Head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE), B. Nadesan, on Friday urged Chinese government to allow Tamils plight to be discussed at the UN Security Council for a second time. "The Sri Lankan state is not only denying the Tamil sovereignty, but it is waging a genocidal war against them of catastrophic dimensions," said Mr. Nadesan adding that Colombo was engaged in a propaganda campaign saying that the conflict is an internal matter.
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Uthayn editor Vithiyatharan detained for 3 more months

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 19:12 GMT]
Colombo Pettah Court majistrate, Jegan Balapitiya, extended Wednesday the detention period of Uthayan editor Vithiyatharan for 3 more months when he was produced before him by Prevention of Crime Branch police, sources in Colombo said. The police requested the court for the extension of detention of Vithiyatharan on the directions of Gothabaya Rajapakse, Defence Secretary and the brother of President Rajapakse, the sources added.
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UN withheld civilian casualty figures to protect Sri Lankan state - report

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 March 2009, 17:01 GMT]
Publishing two leaked documents by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN, in an exclusive report on Wednesday revealed that the United Nations office had its own estimates of casualty figures. The UN had internal documentation for 9,924 civilian casualties including 2,683 killings and 7,241 injuries since 20 January to 07 March 2009. "Now it appears that unlike in other conflicts from Darfur to Gaza, the UN withheld the Sri Lanka figures, in effect protecting the Sri Lankan government from criticism," the Inner City Press reported Wednesday. The report comes as the Sri Lankan government was trying to discredit TamilNet figures, fearing that the UN-referred casualty figures were based on TamilNet coverage.
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40,000 Tamils stage protests in front of EU, UN in Europe

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 16:14 GMT]
More than 25,000 Tamils, especially youth, across the Europe took to the streets of Brussels on Monday demanding EU to de-proscribe the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam, to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to allow medicine and food to the civilians besieged by its military in all fronts and to demand the Sri Lankan military to pull out from the Tamil homeland. The organisers blamed the EU's misguided policy on proscribing the LTTE as having tilted the diplomatic balance between the parties, causing the war of aggression against the Tamils by the Sri Lankan state. Meanwhile more than 10,000 Tamils staged a protest in front of the UN office in Geneva.
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18 civilians reported missing in 'safe-zone' border

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 14:21 GMT]
18 civilians who had gone to pluck coconuts in I'ranaippaalai area taking risks amid shelling and firing are yet to return, according to their relatives inside the 'safety zone', TamilNet correspondent reported Tuesday morning.
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'Safe zone' under encircling fire, 137 killed in 3 days, ICRC worker wounded

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 12:48 GMT]
137 people have died and more than 200 injured since Saturday night in Sri Lanka Army shelling and gunfire inside the 'safe zone' of Vanni. At least 18 of them have died hit by long-range gunfire coming from SLA attacking the civilian zone. Meanwhile, massive bunker buster bombs numbering around 50 dropped by the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) on the fringes of the 'safe zone' on Tuesday caused untold panic among the civilians.
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ICRC transports 440 wounded to Indian military hospital in Pulmoaddai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 11:18 GMT]
The makeshift-hospital in Puthumaaththa'lan on Monday said 440 patients were taken on board in the ICRC ship "Green Ocean." Meanwhile, sources in Colombo said the ICRC was instructed to transport the patients to the hospital run by Indian paramedics in Pulmoaddai. In the meantime, doctors at the hospital who were on duty on Monday were not able to treat patients as the no medicines at the hospital. A shipment of humanitarian supplies was expected on Tuesday, the officials in Vanni told TamilNet Monday.
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Allow ICRC to transport medicines, RDHS urge Sri Lankan Health Ministry

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 10:40 GMT]
Regional Directors of Health Services for Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu districts, Dr. T. Varatharajah and Dr. T. Saththiyamoorthy, Monday jointly urged the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health to supply medicines intended for the civilians in Vanni at least in the next ICRC shipment. Only 5% of the combined quota of medicine and dressings meant for the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of this year was earlier transported by the ICRC. "We were shocked and felt very sad when we were informed by the ICRC that no medicines have been handed over by the ministry officials to be taken in the ship," the doctors said. "Many deaths could have been prevented if basic infrastructure facilities and essential medicines were made available."
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Cruelty of disinformation

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 March 2009, 14:29 GMT]
TamilNet Sunday published news and photographs on the plight of pregnant mothers, newborn babies and babies in the wombs affected by the inhuman shelling and bombing by the Colombo government on the 'safe zone' declared for civilians. This information on hard truth has stirred Colombo's disinformation agencies to discredit TamilNet by bringing in trivial matters such as the camera time-settings of the photographs taken in the makeshift-hospital.
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Pathmanathan welcomes US shift in approach

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 March 2009, 14:51 GMT]
"We have been hoping for such a fresh approach to the longstanding but little understood problem of the Eezham Tamils in the island of Sri Lanka," said Selvaraja Pathmanathan, the newly appointed LTTE plenipotentiary for international relations, when contacted by TamilNet for his response on US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton’s statement Friday. “An immediate ceasefire can stop the killing of civilians and will pave way for other measures to take effect in a more acceptable manner to the affected people”, he further said, adding, “ grief on one side and greed on the other side have to be assessed impartially in working out a solution meeting the aspirations of all of Sri Lanka’s communities.
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SLA shelling kills 133 civilians including 49 children on Tuesday

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 17:27 GMT]
More than 49 of 133 civilians killed inside 'safe zone' in SLA shelling on Tuesday were children and 16 of them were children below 3 years of age. The SLA deployed internationally banned cluster munitions and fire-bombs against civilians who were stranded without shelter inside the 'safe zone' which has become a killing field, reports TamilNet correspondent from Vanni. 273 civilians, including a GS (village officer) and an ICRC worker, were wounded on Tuesday. 47 of the civilians succumbed to their injuries on the way to hospital or after their admittance.
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Tigers blast 6 Sri Lankan artillery positions in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 March 2009, 11:54 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Black Tiger commandos and Col. Kiddu Artillery formation launched a joint attack destroying six artillery positions of the Sri Lanka Army in the early hours of Tuesday, confirmed an LTTE official in Vanni to TamilNet on Wednesday. Six artillery weapons platforms in Thearaavil, located around 18 km from Puthukkudiyiruppu junction, were completely destroyed in a "precise mission" carried out by the Black Tiger commandos and the Tiger artillery formation, the official said. Ammunition dumps were also destroyed, the Tigers said.
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Sri Lankan cluster shelling kills 129 civilians within 7 hours

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 10:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells fitted with cluster munitions and fire-bombs into civilian 'safety zone' killing at least 129 civilians between 2:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Around 200 civilians were wounded. 300 tarpaulin huts burned down to ashes in Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) fired rockets. The medical store at Valaignarmadam has sustained damage and the son of a doctor was reported killed there, according to initial reports. A local NGO official, who was coordinating the rescue of the wounded described the carnage as "Colombo’s show of open mockery at international concern," reports TamilNet's Vanni correspondent. "The attack was criminally deliberate as it was timed for the aftermath of a mini cyclone and floods, at the stranded civilians," the NGO official said.
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Evacuation would constitute U.S. "complicity in genocide"- Prof Boyle

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 05:59 GMT]
"For the United States government to "evacuate" Tamils from Vanni and then turn them over to the genocidal Government of Sri Lanka would constitute "Complicity in genocide" by the United States to the genocide that GOSL is currently inflicting on the Tamils in violation of Genocide Convention Article III (e) and the United States's own Genocide Convention Implementation Act as amended. Such a turn-over could very well create personal criminal responsibility for United States government officials involved in this process under both international criminal law and United States domestic criminal law," warns Prof. Boyle, an expert in international law and a professor at University of Illinois College of Law.
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Colombo's shelling carnage of flood-hit civilians, 25 children killed

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 02:56 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intensified indiscriminate shelling on the 'safe zone' throughout Monday, continuing into Tuesday morning to the time of this reporting, killing 74 civilians and injuring more than 100, TamilNet correspondent reported from Vanni. 25 of the victims killed were children. "The inhuman shelling deliberately targeted all the areas of the 'safe zone' where civilians are already victims of flood and a mini-cyclone that hit them Monday." All lethal ammunitions such as artillery-fired cluster shells, fire-shells and Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) shells were used in the SLA attack.
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Shelling amidst mini-cyclone and lashing rains, thousands stranded

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 March 2009, 13:43 GMT]
A lashing rain that started Sunday night became a mini-cyclone Monday severely causing misery to the already suffering civilians in the 'safe zone' in Mullaiththeevu. Amidst this catastrophe they were inhumanely attacked by the Sri Lanka Army shelling in which 71 civilians were killed within the last 36 hours, reports TamilNet correspondent from Vanni. The mini-cyclone blew away the temporary tarpaulin tents and the low land adjacent to sea coast where the people were herded became heavily flooded causing at least 20,000 families stranded. A person who witnessed shell hit killings told TamilNet correspondent with frustration that he was 'unfortunate to survive'.
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Mediaperson killed in SLA shell attack

[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 March 2009, 17:10 GMT]
TamilNet sadly shares the news of the killing of an independent media person Friday, in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shell attack inside the 'safe zone' in Vanni. He was long helping TamilNet’s independent Vanni correspondent and even just before his killing, he had assisted our main correspondent in covering a story. He was killed hit by an SLA shell while in his cottage in the 'safe zone'.
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