Explosion in Vanni SLA camp, 3 soldiers wounded

[TamilNet, Friday, 10 September 2010, 09:25 GMT]
Three soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army were injured in a blast that took place Friday afternoon at SLA 211 headquarters in Vavuniyaa. It was an accidental explosion while soldiers were cleaning a detonator box in the camp, SLA spokesman Major General Ubaya Medawala told media in Colombo.
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ICRC to close Mannaar office end of November

[TamilNet, Thursday, 09 September 2010, 16:44 GMT]
The Mannaar district regional office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is to be closed down at the end of November 2010, according to a news release by the ICRC. It will however continue to support communities that are being resettled in the area from its regional office in Vavuniyaa, which will also assist beneficiaries of the ICRC's Family Visits Assistance (FVA) programme, the release further said..
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Properties of uprooted in Vanni plundered with SLA assistance

[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 September 2010, 05:55 GMT]
Muslim and Sinhala traders from Southern Sri Lanka are actively plundering the properties abandoned when the people of Vanni were forced to leave them during war, with the assistance of Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vanni. The traders make huge profits transporting them in vehicles to Vavuniyaa, Anurdapura and Puththa’lam for sale. The plundered goods include iron objects, spare parts dismantled from abandoned vehicles, house fittings and other valuable things. SLA soldiers are given a percentage of the profits made by the traders for allowing them to plunder and transport the goods of the people in Vanni to the South, sources in Vanni said.
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1215 uprooted civilians abandoned in Visuvamadu in Vanni - MP

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 01 September 2010, 02:30 GMT]
1215 uprooted civilians from Vanni brought from the camps three months ago in the name of resettlement are held without any help in Visuvamadu area in Mullaiththeevu district, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, who visited them Monday told media. Mullaiththeevu district Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities do not allow them to settle in their own lands in the district and the people abandoned by government authorities and humanitarian organizations are subjected to untold hardships. The families say that they will look after themselves if only they are allowed to settle in their own properties, the MP said.
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Nirupama faces civil society outburst in North

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 31 August 2010, 17:31 GMT]
India provided arms and logistical support to Colombo in the Vanni war. It didn’t take any effort to stop the war. Even after one year of the war, India didn’t act on rehabilitating the incarcerated people, accused members of the confederation of citizens’ forums in Jaffna while meeting the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Menon Rao on Tuesday. Resettlement is a hoodwink in Vanni, said retired Senior Professor S.K. Sitrampalam of the University of Jaffna, expressing the strong sentiments of Eezham Tamils. Army has occupied the Tamil lands and people have strong doubts whether India would be of any help in Tamils getting a political solution, the civil society representatives told the visiting Indian diplomat.
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Tamil political prisoners in A’pura appeal for release

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 08:16 GMT]
Thirty-five Tamil political prisoners held in Anuradhapura prison since 2005 have made an urgent appeal to Sri Lanka government Sunday to release them on bail or discharge them. They have told the authorities in a memorandum that they are in remand on fabricated evidence against them. These prisoners were taken into custody from Vavuniyaa, Anuradhapura, Mannaar, Jaffna, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Batticaloa.
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80% of resettled families in Batticaloa not paid livelihood assistance

[TamilNet, Monday, 30 August 2010, 05:53 GMT]
Around eighty percent of resettled people in Batticaloa district have not been paid their livelihood assistance of twenty-five thousand rupees. Others were not paid a single cent as livelihood assistance they are entitled at the time of resettlement, according to Batticaloa district Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Pon. Selvarajah.
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Nirupama Rao to visit North

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 August 2010, 07:53 GMT]
Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao is to visit Jaffna, Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Vavuniyaa in the North 30, 31 August in the context of Indian Foreign Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna's proposed visit to Sri Lanka late September, sources in Jaffna said. Nirupama Rao will inspect the progress of development projects, resettlement and rehabilitation activities in the North before meeting Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians 1 March in Colombo. Sri Lanka government, keen to make a show of the 'Development of North' to international countries and India, is sending its ministers to North in haste in an effort to support its claims of achievements in the above mentioned matters, the sources added.
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NGO workers killed in accident in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2010, 14:12 GMT]
Two Tamil youth attached to an international Non-Governmental organisation were killed in a head on collision Wednesday night around 9:30 p.m. at Cheddiku'lam in Vavuniyaa.
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Resettled families in Vanni left to suffer in downpour

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 August 2010, 06:43 GMT]
Rains have been pouring down in Vanni for the last four days with the break of North East Monsoon in Sri Lanka and the resettled families sheltered under makeshift huts without proper roofing are left without any assistance to face the onslaught of the monsoon that will last until the end of December, Non-government Organization (NGO) representatives who visited Vanni said. Promises of constructing houses for the resettled families in Vanni by the Indian government and World Bank are yet to be fulfilled.
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NP Governor wants teaching stopped in war damaged schools in Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 August 2010, 05:41 GMT]
Northern Province Governor, Major Gen. G. A. Chandrasiri instructed the Education Authorities in Vanni to stop all educational activities in the schools in Vanni that were damaged and destroyed during Sri Lanka government's war on Vanni until they are rebuilt or renovated, in a meeting held in Vavuniyaa Monday with the officials of the Northern Province Ministry of Education and Vanni education authorities, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Governor's order is seen as a blow on the students of Vanni who already had been robbed of their education by the war, Vanni education officials said.
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18,237 students sit Year 5 scholarship examination

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 August 2010, 17:58 GMT]
698 uprooted students of Mullaiththeevu district held in welfare centres are among the 18,237 students sitting for the Year 5 Scholarships examination to be held in 196 centres Sunday in the districts of Vavuniyaa, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaiththeevu and Mannaar in northern province.
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Tamil woman dies in accident in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 August 2010, 08:27 GMT]
A Tamil woman was killed knocked down by a lorry in front of Vavuniyaa general hospital located along A9 road Thursday around 9:00 a.m. A lorry coming from behind knocked down the woman riding bicycle. She died on the spot.
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4 Vavuniyaa Tamils arrested in Kandy

[TamilNet, Friday, 20 August 2010, 05:02 GMT]
Four Tamils, residents of Vavuniyaa, were taken into custody by the Kandy police in Alawathugoda area Wednesday in a cordon and search operation. Police said the suspected Tamils failed to produce documents to identify them and the purpose their visit to Kandy.
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HRCSL receives 4763 complaints from Northern Province

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 16:07 GMT]
4763 complaints have been received by the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) from the districts of Jaffna, Mannaar and Vavuniyaa in Northern Province from May last year. Of these more than three thousand complaints are regarding the disappearances of persons from May 2009 till now, according to an official of the HRCSL.
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SLA imposes new restrictions on resettled families in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 August 2010, 05:13 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vanni has instructed the resettled families not to allow anyone other than the family members to stay with them and not to offer food, sources in Vanni said. The restriction causes great difficulty for the relatives and friends of the resettled families who come a long way from Vavuniyaa, Jaffna and other places to visit them. Meanwhile, a large number of army uniforms had gone missing recently in one of the SLA camps in Mullaiththeevu district in Vanni, the sources said.
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SLA in Vanni harass hapless resettled families

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 19:01 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers occupying Vanni are forcibly evacuating resettled uprooted families from their houses and lands on charges that they are supporters of Liberation Tigers and demand money to be allowed to live in their properties which they have managed to make livable, according to many complaints made to Vavuniyaa Human Rights Commission (HRC) office. The complainants, mainly women whose male members of their families had been killed or arrested and detained by SLA, say that members of certain organizations who maintain close relations with SLA soldiers assist them in this racket in which local SLA officers get a major share. In order to exhort money the SLA soldiers claim that the lands are needed for their own use.
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Sri Lanka’s Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission begins sitting

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 15:16 GMT]
The Lesson Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), consisting of eight members, chaired by the former Attorney General C. R. de Silva, commenced its sittings Wednesday morning at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute in Colombo 7, according to Commission’s Secretary S. M. Samarakoon. Bernard Goonatillake, former head of Sri Lanka's Peace Secretariat that was operational during the period of the conflict,is scheduled to give evidence on the opening day. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa is to give evidence before the Commission 17 August. The Commission is to meet from August 11 till the 25th. Sessions on August 14th and 15th are to be held in Vavuniyaa.
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Sri Lanka's Commission convenes as US calls for independent investigations

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 August 2010, 01:52 GMT]
As the Commission on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation appointed by Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa commenced its inaugural sittings on Wednesday morning at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies, No 24, Horton place, Colombo, 58 law makers of United States Congress urged the Obama administration to push for an independent international investigation into alleged war crimes that occurred during Sri Lanka's civil war. "The letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the members of Congress called for such a probe saying panels set up by the Sri Lankan government to probe the allegations "lacked the needed credibility,"" AFP reported.
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Surrendered students detained under PTA sit GCE A/L examination

[TamilNet, Monday, 09 August 2010, 08:19 GMT]
Around 2,500 hundred students from the districts of Vavuniyaa, Mannaar, Ki'linochchi and Mullaiththeevu in Vanni sitting for the GCE A/L examination which commenced Monday are among the 2,45,000 students appearing for the examination throughout the country. 367 students from the districts of Vanni arrested and detained under Prevention of Terrorism (PTA) claimed as members of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are also sitting for the examination, sources in Jaffna said.
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