Aid workers tell donors not to fund Sri Lanka, reports Channel-4's Walsh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 21:14 GMT]
"This is a man-made humanitarian disaster, the aid worker explained. "I am in the strange position of just keep telling all our donors when they come here to NOT to give money,"" writes Channel-4's Nick Paton Walsh, quoting an aid worker inside an internment camp in Vavuniyaa. The Channel-4 crew was deported on the directions of Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse for reporting allegations of abuse, rape, and ill-treatment of Tamils held in internment camps.
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Ilanthirayan seriously wounded in SLA barrage

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 15:38 GMT]
Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) Military Spokesman Irasiah Punitharooban alias Ilanthirayan (Marshall) sustained heavy injuries in the latest artillery barrage by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in the early hours of Sunday, sources close to LTTE in Vanni told TamilNet.
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1200 bodies counted, hundreds seriously injured, aerial bombing continues

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 11:26 GMT]
Rescue workers within the Mullaiththeevu Safety Zone have counted more than 1200 bodies after the large scale slaughter Saturday night and Sunday morning by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) with the use of cluster ammunition, multi-barrel rocket launchers and cannons, sources from Vanni said. The workers fear that there may be additional bodies yet to be uncovered, and the numbers killed will likely rise. Rescue workers also said several hundreds were very seriously injured, and the critical shortage of medicine at the makeshift hospital in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal will lead to many more deaths. Meanwhile, Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal Hospital staff said, until 3:00 p.m. the number of bodies brought to the hospital was 378, injured totaled 1122. The staffers added that 106 of the dead, and 251 of the injured were children.
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Tamil civilian arrested in Puththa’lam

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 09:05 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and police conducted several cordon and search operations since Thursday in Va’n’naaththivi’l’lu and Paalaavi in Puththa’lam district in which a Tamil civilian was taken into custody and hundreds of Tamil, Muslim and Sinhalese civilians were interrogated, sources in Puththa’lam said. Residents of the above places have been asked by the police to register themselves in their respective police stations immediately as these villages are located on the borders of Wilpattu sanctuary. Police sources said the measure has been taken to ensure that no strangers infiltrate these villages.
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LTTE urges IC to act in the international way

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 07:55 GMT]
"More than 2,000 innocent civilians have been killed in the last 24 hours. The wholesale bombardment by Sri Lankan planes and shelling on a densely populated, non combatant civilian safe zone is state terrorism and a war crime," said S. Pathmanathan, the LTTE head of international relations on Sunday. "The Tamil people are dismayed that the United Nations and the International Community have failed in their obligations to protect the endangered civilians. [...] We only ask for an impartial relief effort similar to those extended to other international conflict zones by the UN and the international community in the recent past," he further said.
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UN experts demand international scrutiny in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 03:26 GMT]
Four UN Human Rights Council experts on right to health, food, water, and sanitation, in a statement issued Friday, said that "[t]here is good reason to believe that thousands of civilians have been killed in the past three months alone, and yet the Sri Lankan Government has yet to account for the casualties, or to provide access to the war zone for journalists and humanitarian monitors of any type," and that "[s]hipments of food and medicine to the "no fire zone" have been grossly insufficient over the past month and the Government has reportedly delayed or denied timely shipment of life saving medicines as well as to chlorine tablets," and urged the U.N. to establish a commission to address the critical human rights situation, and demand full respect to human rights.
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2,000 civilians feared slaughtered in a single night

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 02:55 GMT]
Indiscriminate barrage of shelling by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on the 'safety zone' starting from Saturday night to Sunday morning slaughtered more than 2,000 civilians including large number of women and children, medical sources in Vanni said quoting the injured who managed to reach the makeshift hospital. Dead bodies are scattered everywhere and 814 wounded managed to reach the makeshift hospital up to 9:25 a.m., doctors said. Every kind of lethal weapon such as the internationally banned cluster shells and shells fired from Multi Barrel Rocket Launchers and Cannons were used turning the so-called safety zone into a killing field. The SLA usually chooses weekends for its massacres to minimise international attention.
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SLA artillery barrage hits 'safety zone' as ICRC ship leaves Mullaiththeevu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 19:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) stepped up heavy shelling into the safety zone Saturday around 7:00 a.m. Within an hour, more than 50 seriously wounded civilians were rushed to the makeshift hospital now functioning at a junior school in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal, medical sources reported Saturday night. The SLA stepped up artillery and mortar barrage into the 8 square kilometer area where civilians numbering between 120,000 to 165,000 are starving without adequate humanitarian supplies amid congestion. Despite Sri Lanka's assurance to the international community heavy weapons are still targetted towards safety zone.
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Malnutrition in mothers triggers Jaundice, Hepatitis in newborns

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 18:09 GMT]
Lack of basic nutrients in food available to lactating mothers is causing severe cases of jaundice and hepatitis-A in the new borns and months old babies inside the safe-zone where an estimated 120,000-165,000 Tamil civilians are struggling to stay alive, medical sources within the safe zone said Saturday. Mothers have flocked to the temporary hospital relocated to junior school, crying and pleading with the doctors for milk-powder, but hospital stocks are completely depleted, according to Vanni medical sources.
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Sri Lanka arrests Channel-4 journalists

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 17:27 GMT]
Three British TV Channel-4 journalists, Nick Paton-Walsh, the channel's Asian correspondent, producer Bessie Du and cameraman Matt Jasper, who were covering the Sri Lanka conflict in Trincomalee have been arrested and are being taken to Colombo, AP reported. Channel-4's first independently filmed recent exposure coverage of the conditions of the Tamil refugees who fled the war and being in the internment camps had irked Colombo. The blatant rights violations of the Sri Lanka state had disturbed the world at large for the cavaliar fashion the state was behaving towards the civilians.
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Vanni civilians in SLA detention centres to be settled in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 15:54 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) authorities in Jaffna have decided to permanently settle the civilians from Vanni, now held in the SLA detention centres in Jaffna district, in three large detention centres to be located in Allaarai area in Kodikaamam and Kaithadi, in Thenmaraadchi, sources in Jaffna said. The SLA detention centres in Mirusuvil Roman Catholic Church premises and Kodikaamam Government Tamil Mixed School (GTMS) will continue to be maintained, the sources added.
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Extortion through abduction of children increases in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 07:22 GMT]
Officers of local UN organizations in Jaffna peninsula have complained to Sri Lanka Army (SLA) high authorities in Jaffna of demands of extortion and intimidation that their school going children will be abducted, sources in Jaffna said. Though the said officers confirmed the demands and intimidation they refused to give additional information. The persons alleged to be the perpetrators are Sri Lanka Army (SLA) backed paramilitary men who move freely during SLA imposed curfew hours and around SLA camps in the peninsula, civil society sources in Jaffna said.
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Gunmen shoot dead a Muslim, injure 10 in Colombo

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 May 2009, 06:48 GMT]
Masked gunmen arriving in a van with T56 type rifles opened fire Friday around 2:00 p.m on a group of Muslims coming out of Maa’likaavaththai Mosque, killing one and injuring ten of them, sources in Colombo said.
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SLA steps up carnage on civilians

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 20:33 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) has continued heavy shelling with cluster-munitions on civilian targets in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal within the so-called safety zone throughout Thursday and Friday. Several civilians have been killed and many sustained injuries as Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) surveillance aircraft was providing coordinates of densely populated places for the SLA to target civilians. At least 242 civilians were registered as wounded on Friday alone. Medical sources reported that 45 of the wounded, including 15 children, had succumbed to injuries adding that scores were killed and that those killed on the spot were not brought to hospital.
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Rains expose callousness of mass imprisonment

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Heavy rains earlier this week flooded the internment camp created in the name of Ananda Coomaraswamy in Vavuniyaa where the last influx of captured civilians of Vanni are held in temporary tents. But, as 'war prisoners' they didn't have the freedom to move to dryer places, said an aid worker in Vavuniyaa, condemning the International Community and the UN for insisting on the capture of civilians but not taking adequate responsibility of them and their freedom of movement even in times of such a situation.
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SLA, Police arrest 75 Tamil civilians in Colombo

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 15:51 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and Sri Lanka Police arrested seventy five Tamil youths who are residents of Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and upcountry areas in cordon and search operations conducted during the last three days from dusk to dawn in Kotahena, Grandpass, Muhathuwaaram, Wellawatte, Bambalapitya and Kollupitty. Similar operation was also conducted in Negombo, Gampaha and Kalutara, media sources in Colombo said.
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MIA draws Oprah's attention to Sri Lanka bombing of safe zone

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 10:42 GMT]
Oscar and Grammy award nominee, Eezham born music phenom, Maya Arulpragasam (MIA), after meeting the popular talk-show host Oprah Winfrey at a gala at Lincoln Center in celebration of the most influential people list the Time magazine produced, drew Oprah's attention to Sri Lanka Government's bombing of civilian camps inside the safe zone in MIA's face book.
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Family man reported missing with Jaffna HRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 16:43 GMT]
An officer attached to Kodikaamam Agriculture Department is reported missing since 30 April while returning home from Nalloor in Jaffna, according to complaints registered with Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) office. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in Jaffna continues to announce over loud speakers that all Vanni civilians not staying in the SLA detention centres should surrender themselves before 31 May and that the failure to do so will have serious consequences, sources in Jaffna said.
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London protesters want international action, not words, over Sri Lankan humanitarian crisis

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 11:26 GMT]
British Tamils demonstrating outside Parliament are demanding the UK government takes concrete action immediately “to end the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Tamils in Vanni and in the military-run concentration camps.” In a statement to media, Tamil students leading the protests said: “What is needed right now is action by the international community, not merely words of sympathy. Humanitarian intervention has taken place in many parts of the world to save people who have been subject to state violence, ethnic cleansing, and starvation by blockade. Powerful liberal states have acted to save populations being brutalized by their own states, despite the objections and obstructions of other powerful states. The Tamils of Sri Lanka are human beings too.”
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LTTE guarantees safety and security for ICRC

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 May 2009, 08:58 GMT]
Dispelling hints and accusations by certain sections that the LTTE has not guaranteed safe passage to the ICRC to bring in humanitarian relief such as food and medicine, the LTTE political head B. Nadesan in a letter dated 4th May, has given a written assurance that the LTTE reiterates its full commitment and support to the ICRC in its humanitarian and mandated activities. Nadesan requested to consider the letter as a necessary security guarantee. Nadesan was accusing that it was the Sri Lanka government and its forces that were blocking the activities of the ICRC by launching military manoeuvres. Even on Thursday, around 10 AM, Colombo’s forces were shelling towards the ICRC vehicles that had come to the shore to undertake transportation of the wounded civilians, and there were minor damages to the vehicles, LTTE officials said.
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