13 civilians killed, 70 wounded in SLA barrage Friday night

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 February 2009, 14:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched artillery barrage on civilian targets in Vanni Friday night causing severe injuries to more than 70 civilians within the 'safe zone' and the adjoining areas. 13 of the 70 wounded civilians rushed to Maaththa'lan hospital died, according to medical authorities.
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KwaZulu condemns genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 February 2009, 11:58 GMT]
The Speaker of Kwazulu-Natal legislature, the provincial government of the South African region inhabited by the largest ethnic group of the country, on Friday condemned the genocide of Tamils and expressed his support for the Tamil freedom struggle, accepting a memorandum on behalf of the premier of Kwazulu Natal, Sbu Ndebele, from the demonstrators in the city. More than 1500 South African participants marched approximately 2 km through the city’s main street to Freedom Square urging India to stop sending arms, Sri Lanka to stop the genocide of Tamils and the international community to impose sanctions on Sri Lanka.
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SLA barrages Mullaiththeevu after Tiger air attack on Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 February 2009, 02:25 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched artillery barrage towards IDP settlements located in Ampalavaanpokka'nai and the area located between Ira'naippaalai and Maaththta'lan Friday night from 9:30 to midnight. Casualties are not known.
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Sri Lanka forces 'slaughtering' civilians – HRW

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2009, 23:07 GMT]
The Sri Lankan government should immediately cease its indiscriminate artillery attacks on civilians in the northern Vanni region and its policy of detaining displaced persons in internment camps, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Friday. "Sri Lankan forces are shelling hospitals and so-called safe zones and slaughtering the civilians there," James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Sri Lankan forces have repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled areas crowded with displaced persons. This includes numerous reported bombardments of government-declared "safe zones" and of the remaining hospitals in the region,” HRW said. “The plight of the region's civilians has been made worse by the government's decision in September 2008 to order most humanitarian agencies out of the Vanni.”
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LTTE: Black Air Tiger attack on Colombo's Air Force HQ, Air Base

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2009, 22:55 GMT]
The LTTE Friday claimed two aircraft of Black Air Tiger mission diving into Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Headquarters in Colombo and into the SLAF base at Katunayaka, carrying out successful air raids. The Tigers also released photograph of the two Black Air Tigers, Col. Roopan and Lt. Col. Siriththiran with LTTE leader Velupillai Pirapaharan before embarking on their mission.
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Norwegian company donates sea craft, felicitates Colombo's 'victorious' forces

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2009, 19:39 GMT]
Managing Director of a Norwegian boat manufacturing company, Jostine Viksund, Friday said that he and his staff had decided to donate their latest innovation, Viksund 605, a speed boat produced by them, to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence, as a "tribute to the victorious armed forces," according to the Sri Lankan Defence Ministry, which said the craft would be used in coastguard duties. More than 400 Tamil Nadu fishermen have been reportedly killed by the Sri Lanka Navy on coastguard duties during the last few years.
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Tiger aircraft bomb Colombo, 2 killed, 51 wounded

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2009, 16:25 GMT]
Two LTTE aircrafts hit two Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) installations in Colombo, the Slave Island area where the SLAF Headquarters is located and the SLAF base at Katunayake between 9:20 and 9:45 p.m. Friday. 47 persons, including Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) airmen, were rushed to hospital from Slave Island. Several of the wounded have sustained serious injuries, the sources said. Two of them succumbed to their injuries. At least 6 persons were wounded inside Katunayake airbase. Two of the aircrafts have come down on their targets, according to available details from Colombo.
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Tamil Murasu comes out with corrigendum

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2009, 11:42 GMT]
The Tamil daily of Singapore, Tamil Murasu, on Thursday published a corrigendum in its front page for a headline that appeared in the newspaper on 05 February. The headline cited a TamilNet article of 30 January as the source. The corrigendum consents that TamilNet is not a website of the LTTE and provides a Tamil translation of the concerned lines of the article, conceding that the Tamil Murasu headline did not accurately capture the thrust of the article.
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"Flames on my body will guide to liberation"

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 February 2009, 11:30 GMT]
"We Tamils, displaced and all over the world, loudly raised our problems and asked for help before [the] international community in your own language for three decades. But nothing happened ... So I decided to sacrifice my life ... The flames over my body will be a torch to guide you through the liberation path," said British newspaper Guardian quoting British computer graduate, Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, who immolated to death in Geneva last week.
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30 families wiped out in massive attack Wednesday, shelling continues

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2009, 18:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) fired 32 bombs, both cluster and bunker busters and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired more than 200 artillery shells, wiping out more than 30 families along the Iranaippaalai Ananthanpuram Road where humanitarian institutions including orphanages, houses of displaced and elders were located, TamilNet correspondent in Vanni reported on Thursday. More than 180 huts were destroyed in the massive bombardment. Meanwhile, 24 civilians were killed in Puthukkudiyiruppu in SLA artillery barrage in the early hours of Thursday. 10 more civilians were killed in Ira'naippaalai, Aananthapuram and Valaignarmadam villages.
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LTTE identifies Sri Lankan PoW killed in SLAF air attack

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2009, 16:09 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldier who was in the custody of the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) was killed in the air attack carried out by the Sri Lanka Air Force on Aananthapuram on Wednesday, according to LTTE officials.
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SLA soldiers search Kurunakar Technical Institute in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2009, 14:51 GMT]
Hundreds of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers suddenly surrounded Wednesday around 9:00 a.m the premises of Advanced Technical Institute (ATI) in Kurunakar and ordered all the students out of their classes before conducting a scrupulous search of all the buildings of ATI, sources in Jaffna said. The soldiers subjected the students, who numbered more than a hundred, to rigorous checking, the sources added.
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SLA arrests student in Valikaamam

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2009, 14:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers took away a 16-year-old school student from his house in Aavarangkaal in Valikaamam east in a search conducted in the area Wednesday claiming that they had found medicinal items including glucose from his house, sources in Jaffna said. The boy’s mother took kerosene oil in an attempt to kill herself while his father is said to have gone into hiding. This incident is related to the killings of two youths shot by SLA soldiers recently in Aavarangkaal, residents of Aavarangkaal said.
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Eyewitness account on Vavuniyaa internment camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 February 2009, 11:14 GMT]
"Now, what is happening here is genocide in many forms. Needless to say scattering people all over to unknown and unfamiliar places will ultimately lead to a weak population and result in damages done to our culture, education, and relationships. I can foresee a maimed Tamil generation with no hope in the future. The international community can make statements. But none will pay heed. For me the future looks dark and gloomy," reveals a letter written by a professional eyewitness, who visited the barbed-wired internment camps and hospital in Vavuniyaa couple of days ago.
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Students in detention camps to attend schools under SLA control

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 16:49 GMT]
Students of the civilians brought from Liberation Tigers held territories and held in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp in Mirusuvil are to attend a temporary school in Kodikaamam, taken to the school and back to their camp each school day by SLA soldiers, Thenmaraadchi education office sources said. Students held in similar detention camps in Koappaay Government Teachers’ Training College and in Kurunakar are to attend school under SLA surveillance, the sources added.
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India offers ‘final thrust’ for ‘subjugation’ of Tamils

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 16:40 GMT]
Accusing the Tigers for committing damages to the Tamil community and calling them for laying down arms and releasing the civilians, the Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Indian Parliament on Wednesday offered India’s facilitation to evacuate civilians, working along with the Colombo government and the ICRC, who would be responsible for the security, screening and rehabilitation of them, BBC reported. This offer without taking responsibility, neither to the future plight of the civilians nor to the political consequences that would follow, is the 'best of its abetment' India is rendering to Colombo in the subjugation of Tamils, according to Tamil political observers.
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SLAF airstrike targeted PoW centre - Vanni Radio

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 12:20 GMT]
Tamileelam Vaanoli, a commercial broadcast of the Voice of Tigers (VoT), in its news broadcast on Wednesday said the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) attack on Aananthapuram near Ira'naippaalai on Wednesday had targeted a rehabilitation centre for Prisoners of War. LTTE officials are yet to confirm the report.
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Massive air attack on civilian targets, scores killed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 09:10 GMT]
At least 50 civilians were killed Wednesday around 12:50 p.m. when four Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers dropped cluster bombs on Internally Displaced Civilians at Aananthapuram in Ira'naippaalai, according to initial reports from medical sources. More than 70 wounded were rushed to hospital so far and 10 of the victims have died on the way to Maaththa'lan hospital. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched an artillery barrage blocking transportation of wounded to hospitals. Doctors in the makeshift hospital told TamilNet that unless the seriously wounded were not evacuated by the ICRC to Trincomalee or elsewhere, many would die at the hospital. There is no medicine at the hospital as Colombo has refused to allow medical supplies to Vanni since December 2008.
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SLA artillery fire hits new 'safety zone', 108 killed, 200 wounded

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 03:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched indiscriminate artillery barrage into the newly announced 'safety zone' killing at least 108 civilians and causing injuries to more than 200, according to initial details from the medical sources in the area. Every shell that hit the area seemed to have caused casualties, said a doctor at the makeshift hospital at Maaththa'lan. More than 100,000 people have been forced into a plain and narrow strip along the coast, north of Mullaiththeevu town, without potable water. Meanwhile, relentless artillery barrage by the SLA has boxed Theavipuram and Va'l'lipunam villages within the old zone, trapping thousands of civilians preventing them from moving to the new 'safe zone'.
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Sampanthan accuses Sri Lanka of genocide of Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 February 2009, 19:21 GMT]
"A news black-out of Sri Lanka Government's slaughter of Tamils through indiscriminate artillery barrage and bombings prevails, while the International media is publishing false information spread by Colombo," said Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentary group leader, R. Sampanthan, in a press meet attended by a large number of local and international journalists Tuesday afternoon in Sri Lanka parliamentary complex, sources in Colombo said.
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