Shortage of medical supplies in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 10 April 2000, 06:33 GMT]
Hospitals in Vanni have not received their first quarter allocation of Medicines, X'ray films and laboratory chemicals which is seriously affecting treatment of patients, hospital sources said.
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Profit plans stymie passage to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 April 2000, 09:08 GMT]
The private operators of the passenger ship service to the north are quoting more than four thousand rupees (58 USD) for a return ticket to Jaffna from Trincomalee said a Jaffna Kachcheri official when contacted this morning by TamilNet over the continuing delay in obtaining the consent of the ICRC to escort such vessels. The official said "this ticket price structure is unfair". He added it could further compound the problem because the ICRC has no mandate, as far as he was aware, to escort a profit making passenger ship service.
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Bishop asked to mediate POW release

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 April 2000, 21:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka's Minister for Ethnic Affairs, Mr.Jeyaraj Fernandopulle wrote to the Bishop of Mannar today requesting him to mediate the release of the Sri Lanka army soldiers held by the Liberation Tigers in the Vanni. Church sources in Mannar said that the Bishop is expected to leave shortly, once he obtains clearance to visit the Vanni.
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(Photos) Journalists condemn attacks

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 April 2000, 09:01 GMT]
The Vanni Journalists Association has condemned recent attacks on journalists, a news statement said. On Sunday a grenade was thrown at the house of a senior journalist in Batticaloa Mr Aiyathurai Nadesan, and yesterday, BBC's Sinhala Service correspondent Elmo Fernando was assaulted in Colombo. The association has urged the government to take immediate steps to prevent violence acts on media personnel.
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'Let us go' say Jaffna refugees

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 April 2000, 20:55 GMT]
"Do you intend to give us 2000 rupees to buy our coffins?" "Are you going to let us be used as human shields?" asked angry refugees from the war zones in the southern sector of Jaffna when senior government officials went to distribute dry rations among them this morning. More than three thousand civilians who fled the war have been blocked at Kilali by the Sri Lanka Army since Sunday. The irate refugees were reacting to reports in the media that the government had promised to give 2000 rupees (28 USD) as relief to each family displaced from the war zone near Jaffna's gateway garrison following representations made by Tamil Parliamentarians about their plight yesterday.
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Refugee crisis in Jaffna war zones

[TamilNet, Saturday, 01 April 2000, 17:08 GMT]
Local officials and Catholic church sources said today that they are fast running out of rice gruel for more than 7500 persons displaced in the Pallai sector due to the fighting between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lanka army. They said there aren't funds or supplies to feed the people who fled the shelling in Pallai and Maasar, north of the Elephant Pass garrison, since Monday, March 27 as all civilian transport has come to a halt because of the fighting on the A9 highway and the interior between Pallai and Eluthumadduval.
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Nagar Kovil SLA counters barrage

[TamilNet, Friday, 31 March 2000, 08:02 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers opened up a barrage with artillery and mortars on the Sri Lanka army camp at Nagar Kovil on Jaffna's east coast last night. The bombardment began around 8 p.m. and went on until 3 a.m. this morning.
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Tigers pound Chavakachceri SLA

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 March 2000, 12:39 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers bombarded the Sri Lanka army's 52-3 brigade in Thambuthottam near Chavakachcheri in Jaffna from this morning as hundreds of civilians continued to flee the battle zones in the Thenmaradchi division and the peninsula's southeastern coast. The SLA, meanwhile, vacated another camp at Karukkai on the Pt.Pedro Kodikamam road today.
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Tigers overrun another coastal garrison

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 March 2000, 10:46 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army base at Thalaiyadi on Jaffna's southeastern coast was overrun by the Liberation Tigers this noon around 12.30 p.m. Civilians who fled the fighting today said that the Tigers are pressing on with their attack on the SLA camp at nearby Maruthankerni. A LTTE field commander directing operations in this sector told residents that the camp is expected to fall by evening today.
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Tigers beef up strength on coast

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 March 2000, 18:20 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers who are currently based in Maamunai on Jaffna's southeastern coast said the large number of their special units that have been transported by sea from the Vanni will continue to mount the attack on the Thalaiyadi base and its forward positions in Vaththirayan.
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SLA says coastal garrison pulled out

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 March 2000, 06:29 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army said in a communique this morning that it pulled out its garrison in Maamunai under heavy fire from the Liberation Tigers. The press release states that one officer and thirty two soldiers were killed and hundred and fifty eight including six officers were wounded in the fighting so far. Battles continue in the general area east of Pallai in Jaffna's southern sector according to the SLA's communique.
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Repressive conditions preclude peace talks - Balasingham

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 March 2000, 15:16 GMT]
The removal of "the complex set of repressive conditions" imposed by successive Sri Lankan governments on the Tamils was necessary to create a "conducive climate for peace and mutual trust" ahead of negotiations to settle the island's conflict, the Liberation Tigers' theoretician and political advisor, Anton Balasingham told the Tamil Guardian newspaper this week.
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Memorial for Vanthaarumoolai disappeared

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 March 2000, 06:41 GMT]
Relatives and people of Batticaloa are planning to erect a memorial as a rememberance to the 158 civilians who disappeared from the refugee camp at the Eastern University at Vanthaarumoolai, Batticloa, after being arrested and taken to the army camp by the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) in 1990.
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'City of Trincomalee' to ferry refugees

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 March 2000, 23:20 GMT]
The privately owned passenger vessel 'City of Trincomalee' is to be used for transporting displaced Jaffna people from the Vanni region to north under the resettlement scheme. The expenses will be borne by the State. Refugees will not be charged any fee, according to a letter sent by the Commissioner General of Essential Services to Trincomalee Divisional Secretary.
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Vavuniya residents picket GA

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 March 2000, 18:05 GMT]
About 50 people picketed the Vavuniya Government Agent's office this morning, urging officials to grant them permission to travel to their homes in Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara. They have been held at the 'Goodshed Welfare Centre' in Vavuniya for nearly two months.
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Tamils protest in eastern town

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 March 2000, 06:24 GMT]
More than a thousand Tamils began a one day token fast in Kalmunai, forty kilometers south of Batticaloa, this morning around 8.30 a.m. to protest against what one of the organisers described as "ethnically prejudiced denial of a fully fledged Divisional Secretariat to the Tamils" in the Ampara district.
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POWs to resume hunger-strike

[TamilNet, Sunday, 19 March 2000, 15:42 GMT]
Twenty prisoners of war (POWs), including 11 government troops held by the Liberation Tigers in the Vanni have decided to go on a hunger strike, demanding the government to take steps to secure their release.
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Appeal against Batticaloa pass

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 15 March 2000, 20:33 GMT]
An urgent appeal has been made to President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge not to implement the proposed unpopular pass system in the Batticaloa district.
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Skeletal remains found

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 March 2000, 14:10 GMT]
A human skull and an arm bone were recovered from a sewage pit in a house at Thirunakar in Kilinochchi last Wednesday, said reports from the Vanni. The skeletal remains were handed over to the Kilinochchi hospital.
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'Anthijeshty' ritual banned

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 March 2000, 13:47 GMT]
Hindus in Trincomalee town and its suburbs have been banned from performing "Anthijeshty" rituals in the sea of the east coast of the town.The Hindu faith requires the ritual to be done on the thirty first day after a person's death.
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