5 male corpses exhumed from toilet pit in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 31 May 2010, 11:43 GMT]
Five male bodies estimated to be between 20 to 35 years of age, in highly decomposed state and packed securely in five separate bags were exhumed from the toilet pit of a house in Ka'neasapuram in Ki’linochchi under the supervision of Vavuniyaa Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) Dr. P. Sritharan and in the presence of Ki’linochchi magistrate Monday morning, sources in Ki’linochchi said. Some of the bodies had clothes with Tiger stripes, some in Lamb Black uniforms used by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and some in ordinary civilian dress, the sources added.
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Corpses located in toilet pit in Ki’linochchi to be exhumed Monday

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 May 2010, 16:01 GMT]
The plastic bags containing six corpses found dumped in a toilet pit of a house in Kaneasapuram in Ki’linochchi are to be dug out Monday in the presence of the Judicial Medical Officer (JMO) from Vavuniyaa Government Hospital, on the directive of Ki’linochchi magistrate who visited the site. Members of the family resettled in the said house in February had located Saturday dead bodies of massacred victims, buried inside their toilet pit. Ki’linochchi parliamentarian Sritharan who visited the house and saw the toilet pit said that the killings must have been a planned affair.
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Malnutrition among North, East children reaches fifty percent

[TamilNet, Sunday, 30 May 2010, 04:21 GMT]
Malnutrition among children in the North and Eastern provinces has reached forty-five percent against the national average of 29 percent, according to a report issued by the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).
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Local elections in North to be announced shortly: Basil Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 May 2010, 18:33 GMT]
The government is to hold elections to local authorities in the Northern Province shortly, Sri Lankan Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who is tasked to handle the elections on behalf of the ruling alliance, told media while addressing an inaugural event held in Ki'linochchi Friday.
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SLA plundered vehicle spare parts in Vanni sold in Anuradhapura

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:57 GMT]
Anuradhapura has turned into the main ‘spare parts sales town’ in Sri Lanka as the spare parts of vehicles abandoned in Mu’l’livaaikkaal in Vanni, plundered by Sri Lanka Army (SLA), are being taken to Anuradahapura along A9 road in trucks and vehicles which bring goods to North, according to Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Jaffna parliamentarian. He further alleged that the spare parts of the vehicles of Vanni civilians systematically plundered by SLA soldiers immediately after the war are kept hidden in bunkers with the collaboration of their officers and that the parts are gradually passed on to Southern Sinhalese and Muslim traders to be sold in Anuradhapura.
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Colombo conducts ‘fake’ conference in Ki’linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 19:27 GMT]
Northern government department and corporation key officials urgently directed by their superiors to attend a conference Monday in Ki’linochchi in Vanni to discuss resettlement of people uprooted due to war in North were disillusioned to find that the conference failed to address the issues meant, participants in the conference said. The conference, attended by several key ministers including Wimal Weeravansa and Douglas Devananda besides many parliamentarians from the South, revealed the glaring absence of essential matters like allocation of funds for resettlement or definite plans for resettlement, the sources added. Colombo government has enacted another ‘drama’ to show the world that it is able to convene a conference in Ki’linochchi town just as the Liberation Tigers had done in their days, political circles in North said.
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Missing persons’ relatives hold demonstration in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 16:57 GMT]
Association of Tracing Missing Persons in the war organised a demonstration in front of Vavuniyaa bus stand Monday. Over five hundred persons, kith and kin and loved ones of the missing persons from Vavuniyaa and Ki'linochchi participated in the demonstration carrying placards demanding the Sri Lankan government authority to reveal the real situation as what happened to over twelve thousand 12,000 persons who were either arrested, abducted or went missing during the final stages of the war.
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Wife of victim in Channel-4 photo identifies husband

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 16:28 GMT]
The 7-year-old daughter of a 40-year-old victim of Vanni War identified her father from the photos released by Channel-4 last week and published in local papers in Jaffna. She and her mother, who lost her husband and a 2-year-old son, are now sheltered in an orphanage in Jaffna. A humanitarian activist who met the mother told TamilNet that the victim in the photo, kept naked inside a bunker by the Sri Lanka Army, was Harikrishanan Thuraichamy. He was reported missing since April 2009, when he went to Ananthapuram area promising his family to recover their belongings. He was a former LTTE member, but had left the movement and living with his family, according to his wife. Although some friends of Mr. Harikrishnan had told her that his body was seen among LTTE fighters killed, she has not seen any evidence and she still believes her husband is alive in SLA custody.
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SLA permits annual Vattaappazhai Pongkal festival in Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Monday, 24 May 2010, 05:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities have permitted the annual Pongal festival in the historically famous Amman Koayil located in Vattaappazhai in Mullaiththeevu district to be held Monday but thousands of uprooted civilians from Mullaiththeevu still held in the camps are disinterested in taking part in the Pongal festival as they have been refused permission to resettle in their own places, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The government, however, is making a great show of the festival providing free transport to Vattaappazhai Pongkal festival from Vavuniyaa, the sources added.
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Government planning to bring Sinhalese colonists again to Ma’nalaa’ru in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 16:46 GMT]
Sri Lanka government is accelerating its plans to colonize Ma’nalaa’ru area in Vanni with Sinhalese people and also to bring back the Sinhalese people who had been earlier brought to this area as colonists, some government officers who had visited Ma’nalaa’ru area said. Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and other de-mining organizations are now at work in the above Ma’nalaa’ru area which includes Janakapura, Parakrampura and the traditional Tamil village Othiyamalai. The government has no plans to resettle the ancient Tamil inhabitants of Othiyamalai, the officers said.
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SLA refuses to permit TNA parliamentarians into Menik Farm camp in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 May 2010, 12:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials in Menik Farm Camp in Vavuniyaa did not permit Saturday a group of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to visit the said detention centre and see the Vanni civilians held, sources in Vavuniyaa said. The SLA officials insisted on prior permission from Ministry of Defence Secretary, Gothabaya Rajapakse and stood firm in their decision though the MPP tried to argue their way into the centre, the sources added.
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106 schools closed, 60000 students deprived of education in north

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 May 2010, 08:13 GMT]
At least sixty thousand children are deprived of their education after the war that concluded last year due to the closure of 106 schools in Ki'linochchi, Mullaiththeevu, Thu'nukkaai, Vavuniyaa North and Mannaar. Nearly 62,944 uprooted persons from Vanni are still detained in internment camps in Vavuniyaa, parliamentarian of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) Thursday claimed at a media briefing held in Colombo.
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SLA instructs public on celebrating its Mu’l’l’ivaaikkal victory in Jaffna peninsula

[TamilNet, Monday, 17 May 2010, 20:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high command in Palaali military head quarters released Monday a media directive to Jaffna dailies calling all government offices, schools, shops, public markets and people, in Jaffna peninsula to hoist the Sri Lanka National flag in their places Tuesday, celebrating the first anniversary of SLA Mu’l’livaaikkal victory, sources in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, SLA has also announced that more than 600 young women held in Thellippazhai SLA Special Rehabilitation Camp and Kaithadi SLA detention camp are to be released in an event to be held in Jaffna Veeraisngham Hall Tuesday, the sources added.
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Tracing Missing Persons Association to hold demonstration in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Friday, 14 May 2010, 15:15 GMT]
A mass demonstration is to be held in front of the Vavuniyaa bus stand 18 May to draw the attention of humanitarian organizations and law enforcement authority to the fate of thousands of missing persons after Vanni war last year, according to the convener of the Association of Tracing Missing Persons, Mr. K. Mahendran.
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Jaffna peninsula people gripped in shock, fear as abductions escalate

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 06:16 GMT]
Unidentified men arriving in a van forcibly took away a family woman Tuesday morning as she was returning along Karaveddi Sampanthar shop area after having taken her son to school, sources in Vadamaraadchi said. The abductors had attacked the woman with the intention of killing her and dumped her among the shrubs in a deserted area in Valvai where Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers are on patrol. Meanwhile, a teenage girl student had managed to escape from abductors with injuries Tuesday in Point Pedro in Vadamaraadchi while some men had tried to abduct a young woman in front of Jaffna Teaching Hospital as she was coming out of the hospital after treatment, sources in Jaffna said.
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Colombo Court remands Vavuniya Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 May 2010, 09:48 GMT]
Colombo Fort Magistrate Monday ordered further remand for a Tamil youth till May 17 when he was produced in court by Sri Lanka Police on a report that he had allegedly been involved in bomb attacks in the south during pre-war situation, legal sources said.
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Lawyers in North protest against death threats to Chaavakachcheari magistrate

[TamilNet, Monday, 03 May 2010, 10:31 GMT]
The lawyers practising in Chaavakachcheari court abstained from appearing in court Monday expressing their protest and condemnation against the death threat issued to their magistrate Pirabakaran allegedly by two Eelam Peoples Democraatic Party (EPDP) operatives, sources in Chaavakachcheari said. They were soon joined by all the lawyers of the courts in the districts of Jaffna, Vavuniyaa, Mannaar, Ki’linochchi and Mullaiththeevu paralyzing all activities in all the courts in the North, the sources added.
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Missing youth's body found in Chettikulam well

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 May 2010, 19:04 GMT]
The body of a Tamil youth who is reported to have been missing from Friday was recovered from abandoned well in Chettikulam in Vavuniyaa Saturday evening. The victim has been identified as Gnanasingham Thanushan, 26, police sources said.
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Uprooted Vanni civilian shot dead, first killing in Jaffna after May 2009

[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 May 2010, 17:51 GMT]
A 26-year-old male, Sivalingam Satheesan, an uprooted civilian who settled in Jaffna after leaving the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) operated internment camp in Vavuniyaa, has been gunned down on Jaffna - Point Pedro Road Sunday around 7:30 p.m. by armed men riding a motorbike. The killing has taken place in SLA-guarded road near Ceylinco insurance company and Vadamaraadchi telecommunication building. This is the first killing by gunmen reported in Jaffna after the Eelam War - 4 ended in May 2009 in Vanni. The targeted killing of Vanni IDP comes in the wake of a recent visit by Sri Lanka's Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to Jaffna. Tension prevails in the area.
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Thanthai Chelva remembered on his 33rd anniversary

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 April 2010, 17:44 GMT]
The 33rd death anniversary of the late Tamil leader and the founder of Federal Party (Ilangkai Thamil Arasu Kadchi - ITAK), Samuel James Velupillai Chelvanayagam (SJV) was observed in the North and East with hundreds of ITAK supporters along with ITAK parliamentarians attending the memorial events in Jaffna, Vavuniyaa and Trincomalee. ITAK parliamentarian Mavai Senathirajah in Jaffna and ITAK leader and parliamentarian R. Sampanthan in Trincomalee took part in the events.
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