Humanitarian situation worsens in Vaharai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 December 2006, 13:30 GMT]
More than 20 000 civilians continue to stay in temporary refugee camps at schools and surrounding houses in villages Kathiraveli, Vammivedduvan and Palchenai in Vaharai region amid acute shortage of food and humanitarian supplies, a local NGO official told TamilNet. Many families from Vaharai were forced to leave behind their grandparents who were unable to walk long distances.
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More IDPs arrive from Vaharai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 December 2006, 03:42 GMT]
Around 4000 people from nearly 1000 families from Vaharai area in the LTTE controlled Batticaloa district arrived to military controlled area on Thursday and Friday and the authorities made arrangements to house them in the villages of Mankerny, Vinayagapuram, Kiran, Chenkalady and Savukkady, S. Punniyamoorthy, the District Secretary of Batticaloa said.
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Declare Vaharai a safe zone ­-Trinco MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 December 2006, 00:23 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian for Trincomalee district, K. Thurairetnasingam, urged the International Community and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to convince the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL), to demarcate a safe zone in Vaharai where thousands of Internally Displaced People (IDP) from Trincomalee district who had fled their homes due to SLA onslaught are currently trapped.
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3 boats capsize, 14 feared dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Friday, 15 December 2006, 07:34 GMT]
Three of seven boats with Vahari Internally Displaced Persons leaving from Vaharai to Valaichenai Friday around 4:30 a.m capsized due to rough seas and overloading. Only two of the boats reached Valaichenai jetty safely while two boats are still missing. Five bodies were recovered near Valaichenai jetty where the third boat turned over and four persons including a 3 days old infant and a boy were saved. The first boat capsized within a short distance from Vaharai jetty at the start of the journey and the second boat drowned at mid sea between Vaharai and Valaichenai, sources from the region said.
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"Colombo on genocidal war path" - Thamilchelvan

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 December 2006, 23:50 GMT]
Liberation Tigers Political Head, S. P. Thamilchelvan, in his address on International Human Rights Day held in Kilinochchi Sunday, stated that the Sri Lankan Government, depriving the Tamil people of their fundamental birthrights such as the "right to life, right to national identity and the right to homeland," and disabling the Ceasefire Agreement with its presently introduced "Prevention of Terrorism" act, was on a "genocidal war path," violating not only human rights laws, but also the Geneva humanitarian laws by carrying out bombardments on hospitals and schools. "Tamil people stand deceived by the membership conferred on the Sri Lankan state to the newly formed Human Rights Council."
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Elilan: SLA offensive repulsed in Panichchankerni

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 December 2006, 13:33 GMT]
A Sri Lanka Army offensive south of Vaharai along the costal line towards Panichchankerni was defeated by the defence forces of the Tigers, said S. Elilan, Trincomalee Political Head of the Tigers. 19 civilians were killed in SLA and Sri Lanka Navy shelling and 50 civilians were wounded Sunday.
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TRO appeals for SLMM, ICRC access to Vaharai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 December 2006, 12:48 GMT]
Pointing out that "over 30 shells have landed close to the Vaharai Hospital in the past few hours and 6 TRO Camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the area have received direct hits from shells resulting in 17 deaths, including a 6 month old baby, and 67 injured," Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), in a press release issued from its Colombo office Sunday, appealed to the Humanitarian Organizations and the International Community to pressure Government of Sri Lanka to allow access to the ICRC and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to the Vaharai area.
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19 more Tamil refugees killed, new SLA offensive south of Vaharai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 December 2006, 06:16 GMT]
19 Internally displaced people, who fled artillery bombing in Palchenai and Vammivedduvan in Vahrai region to Kandalady Government School, were killed and more than 25 wounded when Sri Lanka Army fired artillery shells hit the school Sunday morning, according to LTTE's Military Spokesman Irasiah Ilanthirayan. Sri Lanka Navy gunboats were also engaged in firing shells towards densely populated refugee camps as Sri Lankan forces opened a new front towards Panichchankerni Sunday morning. Meanwhile, a Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation official in Vaharai told TamilNet all the five refugee camps in Vaharai were being targeted by artillery shelling forcing all civilians to flee.
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15 Tamil civilians feared killed, 41 wounded in 11 hour artillery barrage

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 December 2006, 19:18 GMT]
At least 15 civilians, including a 6-month-old baby, were feared killed and 41 wounded when SLA troopers fired artillery shells towards IDP camps in Vammivedduvan and Palchenai, medical sources in Vaharai told TamilNet. The parents of the baby killed in artillery barrage were admitted at Vaharai hospital. Nine dead bodies, 5 male and 4 female victims, were brought to hospital, according to doctor M. Varathan at Vaharai hospital. Ten of 26 patients, incuding children from 3-years to 15, admitted at hospital were at critical state. Many more were feared wounded. The SLA has refused access to ambulances from Batticaloa to transport wounded out of Vaharai.
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Thousands flee Eachilampattu, Palchenai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 December 2006, 08:49 GMT]
Hundreds of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim families started fleeing villages surrounding Eachilampattu border area into SLA and LTTE controlled territory as thousands of refugees from Palchenai and Verugal areas north of Batticaloa district started fleeing towards Vaharai, where Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers engaged in aerial bombardment in an attempt to block civilians from reaching Vaharai.
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SLA fired artillery shells hit school, 13 refugees wounded

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 December 2006, 06:29 GMT]
Thirteen refugees, including a 4-year-old child, were wounded when Sri Lanka Army fired artillery shells hit a school in Paalchenai, 8 km north of Vaharai Saturday, around 11:20 a.m., as SLA intensified a ground offensive from Eachilampattu, via A15 trunk road towards Verugal, 15 km northwest of Vakarai amid indiscriminate artillery barrage. Nine wounded refugees from the school where IDP families were staying, were rushed to Vaharai hospital, medical sources said. Heavy fighting was reported between Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lanka Army at Eachilamapattu.
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One Vaharai IDP dead, another critical

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 December 2006, 14:00 GMT]
Deaths, caused by the acute shortage of medicine at Vaharai hospital and the continuing Sri Lanka Army (SLA) heavy rocket and artilery fire from Mankerny, Kadjuwathe and Kattumurivu camps on Vaharai in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held territory, are on the increase, according to sources in Vaharai.
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72,000 displaced from Batticaloa, Trincomalee districts

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 28 November 2006, 01:47 GMT]
Batticaloa District Secretariat reported Monday that 41,463 people from Trincomalee district and 30,630 people from Batticaloa have fled to the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled areas in the Batticaloa district from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) held areas. Mr. S. Puniyamoorthy the District Secretary said that the Internally Displaced People have been sheltered in 22 temporary locations in 14 Grama Seveka divisions in Batticaloa district.
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STF offensive meets stiff Tiger resistance in Amparai

[TamilNet, Saturday, 25 November 2006, 11:29 GMT]
Sri Lankan Special Task Force (STF) troopers from Kanchirankuda and Sangamankandy camps in Amparai district Saturday morning around 7:00 a.m. launched an ambush-styled offensive towards Thangaveluathapuram in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled area. Following stiff resistance put up by a guerilla unit of the Tigers, the STF has pulled back, LTTE political official Veeramani said. A civilian was killed when the STF continued with heavy mortar fire towards Thangavelauthapuram. Two LTTE fighters and four STF personnel were killed in the fighting. STF officials have claimed seizure of 2 automatic rifles and a pistol from the Tigers.
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Foreign envoys meet IDPs, medical, fisheries officials in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 November 2006, 01:13 GMT]
Dr. C. Kathiravetpillai, Medical Officer at the Manthikai Base Hospital in Point. Pedro, Vadamaradchi raised the current acute shortage of essential food provisions, medical supplies and the malnutrition and starvation in the Jaffna peninsula caused by the closure A9 land route, with the Foreign envoys of Switzerland, Australia and United Kingdom when they visited the hospital Wednesday, sources in Point Pedro said.
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TNA warns of 'imminent humanitarian disaster' in Vaharai

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 November 2006, 17:33 GMT]
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), condemning the Sri Lankan military's blockade of food and medicine going into the Vaharai area as "a blatant violation of all humanitarian laws", said Monday this action "is clearly an attempt to use food as a weapon of war, and compulsively evict persons from their areas of historical habitation." In an adjournment motion moved by its Parliamentary group leader, R. Sampanthan, MP, in the House, the TNA called on the government to "rush food medicine and other essentials to the families resident at Vakarai and Kadiravelli and thereby avert an imminent and grave humanitarian disaster."
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Opening A9 imperative to avoid humanitarian crisis, Bishop tells Envoys

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 21 November 2006, 17:04 GMT]
Bishop of Jaffna, Rt. Rev. Dr. Thomas Savundaranayagam stressed on the immediate opening of the A9 route as the only remedy for the humanitarian disaster prevailing in the Jaffna peninsula when Australian High Commissioner Greg French, Switzerland Ambassador Ruth Flint and the British Deputy High Commissioner Lesley Craig met the bishop Tuesday around 3:00 p.m at Bishop's House in Jaffna, sources in Jaffna said.
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Foreign diplomats, aid agencies to embark on Humanitarian Mission to Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 20 November 2006, 10:30 GMT]
Australian High Commissioner Greg French, Switzerland Ambassador Ruth Flint and the British Deputy High Commissioner Lesley Craig, together with the representatives from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) are scheduled embark on a Humanitarian Mission to Jaffna Tuesday and Wednesday to evaluate the humanitarian situation prevailing in Jaffna, informed sources said.
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"Intervene and avert major humanitarian crisis in Vaharai," TRO urges International Community

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 November 2006, 14:32 GMT]
Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO) on Thursday appealed to the International Humanitarian Community to intervene adn avert a major humanitarian crisis in Vaharai. No food convoy has passed through the Pannichankerni Bridge to Vaharai since 5th November which has resulted in an acute food shortage. ICRC, World Food Program (WFP) and other international NGOs have not been allowed to provide emergency food provision, non food relief items (NFRI) and shelter materials. The International Community must pressure the Government of Sri Lanka to allow access for humanitarian agencies and food supplies, the TRO said.
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Operation USA: GoSL ‘blocking aid’ to Jaffna, Vaharai

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 November 2006, 05:27 GMT]
Operation USA, a large American NGO, says it is “collecting funds and pushing the US Government and the UN to take firm action to help re-open humanitarian corridors” in Sri Lanka. Demanding access to internally displaced people (IDPs), the NGO said “a contributing factor to the current tension between the Sinhalese and Tamils is the inequitable distribution of tsunami relief aid by the Government of Sri Lanka.”
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