March for Peace campaign to be held in Colombo

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 19:21 GMT]
A broad coalition of people against violence and war is to participate in a "March for Peace," organized by the National Anti-war Front (NAWF), that will begin at Hyde Park in Colombo at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, culminating in a peace rally at the Viharamahadevi open Air Theatre at 3.00 p.m, said a press release issued by the NAWF Chairman, Dr Kumar Rupesinghe.
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Heavy fighting breaks out in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 18:25 GMT]
Explosions were heard inside Palaly airbase Wednesday night and heavy fighting was reported at many points of Forward Defence Line (FDL) positions in Jaffna from 6:00 p.m. Flares to illuminate the night sky were seen above the Palaly military base area, and Tiger artillery shells began hitting the base Wednesday night after the explosions ceased, according to initial civilian reports.
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STF shot and killed three Tamil youths in Akkaraipattu

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 14:18 GMT]
Three Tamil youths were shot dead Wednesday afternoon around 2.30 p.m. by Special Task Force (STF) personnel in a cordon and search operation conducted in Alayadivembu Ward No: 8 in Akkaraipattu Police division in Amparai district.
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Vavuniya, Trinco observe hartal, mourning day for massacred children

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 08:20 GMT]
General shut down and the day of mourning day was observed in the districts of Vavuniya and Trincomalee Wednesday condemning the massacre of about sixty one children in Puthukudiruppu Sencholai children home in Mullaitivu district by Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF), killing of seventeen workers of French NGO in Muthur by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and indiscriminate killing of Tamil civilians in the North East by the State armed forces, sources said.
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Sri Lankan Kfir jets bomb Vanni

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 07:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force Kfir jets Wednesday bombed LTTE controlled Vadamaradchi East . A civilian was wounded when the bombers hit Thattuvankotti, located on A9 road, between Elephant Pass and Paranthan, 6.5 km north of Kilinochchi. The attack took place around 1:00 p.m.
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Canada expresses concern over Escalation of Hostilities in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 August 2006, 05:01 GMT]
Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Peter MacKay, in a statement on Tuesday expressed concern regarding the escalation of hostilities in Sri Lanka. Canadian Tamils held a rally in front of his ministry in the capital Ottawa, demanding immediate action by Canada, on Monday, after Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombed the Sencholai children home in Mullaithivu where tens of teenage school girls were killed and more than a hundred wounded.
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Body of Tamil fisherman found in Oddamavadi

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 20:42 GMT]
A mutilated body of a fisherman, with stab wounds in neck and abdomen area, was recovered in a stream by the Lagoon near Prawn farm in Veddaththimunai, Oddamavadi by Valaichchenai Police, and was handed over to the Valaichchenai Base Hospital for post mortem examinations at 2.00 p.m. Tuesday, police sources said.
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Tamils protest against SL Government and SLA

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 20:13 GMT]
Tamil residents of Batticaloa and Amparai districts, observed a one day Hartal (general shutdown) and a day of mourning Monday to condemn the Sri Lanka Government and the Sri Lanka Army for discriminating and repressing the Tamils in the region, civil society sources in Batticaloa said. Hartal was also intended to draw the attention of the international community to the desperate plight of the Tamils in the East, the organisers of the Hartal said.


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Newspaper delivery agent shot and killed in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 13:40 GMT]
Soldiers of the Sri Lanka Army fired at a delivery van of the Uthayan, the Tamil daily published in Jaffna district, at Puthur junction near Atchchuveli Tuesday around 11:00 a.m, killing the newspaper agent. The delivery van was on it's way after distributing parcels of Uthayan Tuesday issue during the relaxation period of curfew, civil sources said. The curfew in Valikamam sector was relaxed between 10:00 a.m. and 01:00 p.m. In Vadamaradchi sector, the curfew was lifted from noon till 03:00 p.m.
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20 Tamil youths abducted in Eravur Police area

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 12:12 GMT]
At least twenty Tamil youths were abducted Monday evening by unidentified persons who came in a white coloured van. The abduction took place in several villages including Santhiveli, Murakoddanchenai, Sithandy, Mawadivembu, Vantharumoolai and Kaluwankerni in the Eravur police division in Batticaloa district. However only parents of five abducted youths- Giritharan Sulojan, 22, Sinnathurai Siventhran, 15, Ilayathamby Raveendran, 18 and Ramalingam Vethanayagam, 36 of Santhiveli and Krishnapillai Sivamoorthy, 17 of Sithandy have lodged complaints with the Eravur Police Tuesday morning, sources said.
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SL Military had 'precise coordinates' of bombed peace zone

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 11:32 GMT]
The site bombed by Sri Lankan jets on Monday had been designated a humanitarian zone and the LTTE had passed its coordinates on to the military via the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), NGO sources said Tuesday.
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Explosions in Palaly military base, SLAF aircrafts grounded

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 10:43 GMT]
Artillery shells from Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam positions continued to hit the Palaly military base with irregular intervals Monday night and Tuesday morning, civilian sources in Valikamam said. Civilians who heard the sound of an aircraft circling above the Palaly airbase Tuesday around 6:00 a.m., said there were no indications of the aircraft landing, as shells began hitting the base simultaneously.
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Day of mourning for teenagers killed in airstrike

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 09:50 GMT]
Tamils in the Vanni Tuesday mourned the 61 teenage schoolgirls killed in Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombing Monday. Urging the international community to condemn the attack, the Tamileelam Students Association (TSA) said “there are no words strong enough to condemn the Sri Lankan government’s pre-meditated massacre of innocent school girls in a peaceful learning environment”
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Navy arrests 116 Mannar Tamil civilians fleeing to Tamilnadu

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 09:16 GMT]
Sri Lanka Navy arrested Monday night around 11 p.m. about 116 Pesalai civilians fleeing from Mannar coast in two multi-day fishing boats to Tamilnadu. SLN personnel seized the two boats with refugees about five km in the Mannar Sea off Talaimannar Pier, sources said.
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Tamil youth shot dead in Batticaloa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 15 August 2006, 00:39 GMT]
An unidentified assailant, using a 9mm pistol, shot dead H Puyalawan, 22, and a resident of Kallady, Uppodai, Monday at 11.55 a.m at Poonochimunai Batticaloa in Kattankudy police area, sources in Batticaloa said.
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Killed students, participants of leadership workshop - Ilankumaran

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 22:33 GMT]
The Director of Tamileelam Educational Board, V. Ilankumaran, in an interview to TamilNet Monday said that the schoolgirls killed and injured in Monday's Kfir attack were participants in a 10-day residential "Leadership, Self-Awareness and First Aid workshop." More than 400 G.C.E. A/L students from 18 different schools in Kilinochchi, Mullaithivu, and Oddusuddan Educational Zones, and selected girls from other educational organisations took part in the annual programme, Mr. Ilankumaran said. According to the timetable of the course, 7:00 a.m. on Monday, the time the air-strike took place, was the time of morning-assembly.
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Bombed site ‘not military installation’ - SLMM

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 16:15 GMT]
International ceasefire monitors who visited the site of the Sri Lankan airstrike Monday which killed 61 school girls and wounded 129 said they couldn’t find “any evidence of military installations or weapons.” Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Ulf Henricsson, said monitors who visited Chencholai Valaham after the airstrike said they found at least 10 bomb craters and an unexploded bomb. “It was not a military installation, we can see [that],” Mr. Henricsson told Sri Lanka’s MTV television.
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ITRO condemns SLAF attack on "Peace Village" with 5 orphanages

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 13:42 GMT]
Chencholai Valaham is the campus among the orphanages at the Peace Village of Vallipunam, said the International Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (ITRO London), the representative body of the overseas offices of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation in a press statement condemning the Sri Lanka Air Force bombing that killed 61 schoolchildren and wounded more than 129. "The area is well known by all parties: the Government of Sri Lanka, the Government Agent, ICRC, UNICEF and all those who work in the Vanni," the organisation said urging the international community to condemn the bombing.
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Sencholai attack "pre-meditated, deliberate and vicious"- TNA

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 11:23 GMT]
The parliamentary group of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) condemned Sri Lankan government’s attack on Sencholai childrens' home as "not merely atrocious and inhuman - it clearly has a genocidal intent...The heavy aerial bombardment on the premises clearly indicates that the attack was premeditated, deliberate and vicious," and appealed to the International Community "to take the earliest possible action to stop the Sri Lankan State from proceeding with its genocidal program," in an urgent press release issued in Colombo Monday.
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Bombed compound, a well-known humanitarian zone - GS

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 August 2006, 10:43 GMT]
The Grama Sevaka (a civil servant) of Vallipunam, Mr. Sivarajah, told reporters Monday that the area around the "Sencholai" home where 61 children were killed and 129 wounded by Sri Lankan bombers Monday morning was a well identified civilian zone with other residential homes, including those for the disabled, sources in Mullaitivu said.
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