Diarrhoea claims 9 lives in Vavuniyaa internment camp in one day

[TamilNet, Monday, 01 June 2009, 10:30 GMT]
Nine elderly IDP persons sheltered in Cheddiku'lam internment camp Saturday died due to diarrhoea. Several IDP families in the camp have been affected by diarrhoea. Cheddiku'lam Inquirer into sudden deaths Mr.E.Sahul Hameed held the inquests. Lack of proper distribution of drinking water and medical facilities was the reason for the spread of diarrhoea among the IDPs, according to Cheddiku'lam District Medical Officer.
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SLA officials accused of taking bribes from Vanni detainees

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 May 2009, 23:11 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high officials in charge of the internment camps in Jaffna, where Vanni civilians are held, are alleged to be taking bribes ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 rupees to free the youths among the detainees, according to complaints made by the detainees to Human Rights Organizations (HRC) in Jaffna. SLA authorities in Jaffna, however, continue to refute such allegations.
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TNA MP Kanagaretnam allowed to meet fellow TNA MPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 May 2009, 16:53 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians, Mr N Srikantha and Mr Sivanathan Kishor met separately their fellow parliamentarian Sathasivam Kanagaretnam who is being detained in the Fourth Floor of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Sri Lanka Police in Colombo. Mr.Kanagaretnam is detained since a special CID team took him into custody from an internment camp in Omanthai, in Vavuniyaa district where Vanni IDPs are being kept, media reports said.
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Sri Lanka hunting media’s Tamil sources - RSF

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 May 2009, 23:47 GMT]
Apart from threatening to prosecute journalists who attempt to visit the northern areas captured from the Liberation Tigers, Sri Lanka’s military is trying to identify Tamil civilians who provided information to the foreign press by infiltrating paramilitaries into their military-run refugee camps, RSF (Reporters Without Borders) said Friday. While the Army general appointed in charge of resettling refugees says “all foreign journalists are working against his homeland,” the country’s police chief claims that several journalists, “mostly Sinhalese”, were on the payroll of the LTTE and were involved in the insurgency.
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Catholic priest reported missing, another dies of heart attack, in Vanni

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 May 2009, 16:42 GMT]
Former principal of St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna, Rev. Fr. Francis Joseph, aged seventy, who had been serving in Vanni with six other priests in Puthumaaththa’lan is reported missing, according to the request made to ICRC by Jaffna Bishop House to find his whereabouts, Thursday. Meanwhile, one of the six priests, Rev. Fr. Mariampillai Thatheus Sarathjeevan, 41, died of heart attack while leaving Vanni with the last badge of civilians fleeing Vanni, Jaffna Bishop House sources said.
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Mass burial of IDPs in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Thursday, 28 May 2009, 15:50 GMT]
Bodies of sixty elderly persons and six babies, members of displaced families from Vanni region due to military operation by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and sheltered transit centres in Vavuniyaa were buried in one burial grave in Poonthoaddam general cemetery in Vavuniyaa Sunday morning, media reports said.
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Elderly IDP deaths escalate - Coronor

[TamilNet, Monday, 25 May 2009, 14:19 GMT]
“More elders die in transit camps located for Vanni displaced persons located in Vavuniyaa due to lack of proper facilities. Hence I appeal to the authorities to send elders displaced from Vanni direct to Homes for the Elderly instead of IDP camps. This would prevent more deaths of elders in IDP camps,” said the Chettikulam Inquirer into Sudden Deaths, Mr.E. Sahul Hameed, media reports said.
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Sri Lanka Police questions TNA MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 16:29 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, Mr.S.Kanagaretnam, was taken for questioning by the Sri Lanka police from Chettikulam internment camp Thursday morning, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Kanagaratnam arrived with his family from Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal area to Omanthai with IDPs when the military operation of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) forced the IDPs from the Safety Zone.
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Ban Ki Moon stresses freedom of movement, resettlement of IDPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 11:09 GMT]
United Nation Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, while visiting the largest internment camp in Vavuniyaa, Manik Farm, Saturday for three hours from 9:15 a.m., stressed the need for freedom of movement and immediate resettlement of the more than 300,000 Tamils held in camps. The IDPs also told Ban Ki Moon that they would want the U.N. to take full responsibility for the welfare of the refugees, sources accompanying Moon on his visit said. "The UN has failed in several measures in preventing egregious human rights violations by Sri Lanka against unarmed civilian Tamils during the last several months, and this is the last opportunity to take bold action to repair the damage to UN's reputation. UN should shed its rhetoric on sovereignty and assume full responsibility for the Tamil people," an aid worker told TamilNet after Moon's visit.
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Vanni civilians held back in Ki’linochchi in thousands

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 10:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continues to detain thousands of civilians in its internment camps in Ki’linochchi without sending them on to the camps in Vavuniyaa, sources in Vavuniyaa said. SLA, in its final assault on Mu’l’livaaikkaal, has herded thousands of persons including non-combatants who had been working in the political and judicial wings of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in vast overcrowded camps which lack basic facilities, the sources added.
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ICRC suspends operations, UN calls for access

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 May 2009, 10:02 GMT]
International aid agencies have called for greater access to the camps in which hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians are being held, even as the Sri Lankan government’s restrictions led to the ICRC suspending its operations. The UN and ICRC have expressed concern about the fate of people newly arriving at the camps, which are already over-stretched and over-crowded.
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Mahinda’s accounts crime

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 07:33 GMT]
Before his murderous assault on the so-called safety zone, Mahinda Rajapaksa has always been maintaining that the number of civilians there was only 70,000. But after the first bout of the capture of civilians last month, until Thursday, 247,908 civilians from the safety zone were registered in the internment camps of Vavuniyaa, Pulmoaddai, Mannaar and Jaffna. After the first bout, the Sri Lanka president was saying that only 15 to 20 thousand were remaining in the safety zone. Sunday evening Colombo’s militarised civil administration head of internment camps, Chandrasiri admitted more than 80,000 crossing after the latest onslaught. According to aid officials, some more thousands are still remaining.
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Doctors quit safety zone, volunteer medics remain with injured

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 23:48 GMT]
Medical Superintendent Dr. Shanmugarajah who was attending the wounded at the makeshift hospital at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal junior school, his family, Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) doctors, Dr Varatharajah and Dr Sathiyamoorthy, and three other doctor,s have entered the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled checkpoint at Omanthai. Dr Varatharajah has been seriously wounded during his passage out of the Safety Zone, and reports from Vanni say, he has been air-lifted for medical treatment. His whereabouts are not known.
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Muslim trader abducted in Cheddiku'lam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 12:44 GMT]
An unidentified armed eight member gang in civil dress abducted a Muslim trader with his motorbike on Thursday evening in Cheddiku'lam in Vavuniyaa district. The victim had been riding in his motorbike with a friend from Chitpiku'lam towards Maangku'lam at the time abduction.
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Tamil student from Malaysia reported missing in Katunayake

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 12:38 GMT]
A Tamil youth, Rajaratnam Rajasekaran, 21, resident of Vaiaravapuliyankulam in Vavuniyaa district has been reported missing since May 12. He left Vavuniyaa and arrived in Katunayake international airport on May 12 to fly back to Malaysia to continue his studies in a Malaysian university. Rajasekaran was reported missing after he reached Katunayake, according to complaints with the police by his parents.
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JU students held in SLA internment camps seek Jaffna HRC help

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 May 2009, 11:39 GMT]
Fourteen Jaffna University students from Vanni district detained in Kaithadi Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp along with other civilians from Vanni have complained to Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) officials that their human rights have been violated by denial of permission to continue their studies in Jaffna University, Jaffna HRC sources said. HRC Jaffna has called for a detailed report on this issue from SLA Jaffna Commanding Officer, Jaffna Government Agent and the Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University.
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61 Vanni elderly IDPs buried in one mass-pit in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 11:21 GMT]
Bodies of sixty one elderly Internally Displaced (IDPs) kept in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa General Hospital were buried in a single mass-pit in general cemetery located in Poonthooddam Monday evening. All of those buried died due to natural causes in welfare centres where large numbers of IDPs who fled from the war from Vanni are sheltered.
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Vanni elderly IDPs die in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 16:11 GMT]
The number of deaths among elderly persons in Vavuniyaa IDP camp is on the increase. From May 1 till May 11, sixty-one elderly persons had died due to natural causes. Their bodies have been lying in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa general hospital awaiting relatives to identify them, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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RSF condemn's Channel 4 journalists expulsion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Referring to the expulsion of British Channel 4's three journalists from Sri Lanka for exposing "atrocious living conditions for [Tamil] civilians [in Vavuniyaa internment camps] and ill-treatment they have suffered" Reporters without Borders (RSF), the Paris-based media watchdog, said in a press release issued Monday that the reasons for expulsions are "unfounded and unacceptable" and that the expulsion is the "latest incident in a long list of serious press freedom violations connected with reporting of the war, including murders of journalists, arbitrary or abusive imprisonment, torture, ill-treatment, censorship and expulsions."
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Japan urged to act over Sri Lanka crisis

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 19:14 GMT]
Four international organisations - Human Rights Watch, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, International Crisis Group and Amnesty International - released a joint letter to the Japanese Prime Minister Monday, calling on Japan “to play a more active role in confronting the unfolding catastrophe in Sri Lanka.” The four organisations called on Japan “to support efforts for the [United Nations] Security Council to keep the situation in Sri Lanka under close and regular review and to consider the situation in Sri Lanka formally at the Security Council.” Meanwhile, American Tamils after a rally and a night vigil Friday in New York submitted a memorandum to the Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations.
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