75 civilians abducted in last 3 months – HRC Batticalao

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 15:27 GMT]
Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Batticalao said that 75 civilians have been abducted during the past three months at the rate of one abduction a day. Most of the abductions taking place in Batticaloa district, particularly in Padduvankarai area, have not been registered with the HRC, the sources said.29 civilians in November, 26 in December and 21 in January had been reported abducted with the HRC.
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Tamil diaspora doctors prepared to enter Vanni, demand access

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 15:13 GMT]
Doctors organised in charity and aid organisations in Australia and Norway have urged their foreign ministries, United Nations Secretary General and the ICRC to secure urgent permission from Sri Lankan authorities to facilitate safe passage of their convoy of doctors and medical supplies. Dr. V. Manomohan, the president of Australian Medical Aid Foundation (AMAF) and Dr. T. Sivakanesan, the coordinator of Norwegian Tamils Health Organistaion (NTHO) said Wednesday that their organisations that have rendered medical aid for a long time, especially in the aftermath of Tsunami, have the necessary skills, manpower and resources to engage immediately in the medical aid, given that a safe passage is provided to their medical units.
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Massive air attack on civilian targets, scores killed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 09:10 GMT]
At least 50 civilians were killed Wednesday around 12:50 p.m. when four Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers dropped cluster bombs on Internally Displaced Civilians at Aananthapuram in Ira'naippaalai, according to initial reports from medical sources. More than 70 wounded were rushed to hospital so far and 10 of the victims have died on the way to Maaththa'lan hospital. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched an artillery barrage blocking transportation of wounded to hospitals. Doctors in the makeshift hospital told TamilNet that unless the seriously wounded were not evacuated by the ICRC to Trincomalee or elsewhere, many would die at the hospital. There is no medicine at the hospital as Colombo has refused to allow medical supplies to Vanni since December 2008.
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Vanni civilians in Vavuniyaa camps mentally affected – Rev. Jeyanesan

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 09:04 GMT]
The civilians fleeing the war zone in Vanni and held in the detainment camps in Vavuniyaa are mentally affected severely as they are not permitted to come in contact with their family members or relatives living out of Vanni, according to the interview given to BBC Tamil service by Rev. S. Jeyanesan, the head of the Church of American Ceylon Mission in Sri Lanka, Monday. Rev. Jeyaneasn and his group, obtaining special permission, visited the various detention camps in Vavuniyaa where the Vanni civilians are held to learn of the situation of the detainees.
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SLA artillery fire hits new 'safety zone', 108 killed, 200 wounded

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 February 2009, 03:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched indiscriminate artillery barrage into the newly announced 'safety zone' killing at least 108 civilians and causing injuries to more than 200, according to initial details from the medical sources in the area. Every shell that hit the area seemed to have caused casualties, said a doctor at the makeshift hospital at Maaththa'lan. More than 100,000 people have been forced into a plain and narrow strip along the coast, north of Mullaiththeevu town, without potable water. Meanwhile, relentless artillery barrage by the SLA has boxed Theavipuram and Va'l'lipunam villages within the old zone, trapping thousands of civilians preventing them from moving to the new 'safe zone'.
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8 Tamils arrested in Katunayake

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 February 2009, 20:08 GMT]
Eight Tamil civilians, all are residents of North East provinces were taken into custody in a cordon and search operation conducted in the high security zone of the Katunayake international airport Monday. The police said they were arrested as they failed to prove their identity and justify their presence in the location.
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We are deeply sad, puzzled: LTTE Political Head

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 February 2009, 16:16 GMT]
"We are deeply sad and puzzled at the attitude of the apex institution of humanity, the United Nations, in not taking effective measures to protect the life, security and interests of innocent Tamil civilians," said LTTE's Political Head B. Nadesan on Tuesday. "Instead, the UN is engaged in fruitless exercises of accusing the wrong side, without coming and seeing what is happening by themselves," he said. When stopping the war is the need of the hour, allowing it and lamenting civilian sufferings is a faulty policy, Mr. Nadesan said, adding that indicting the defensive LTTE and exploiting the plight of civilians for the agenda of those who are waging the war will not bring in any positive results.
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UNICEF alarmed at plight of children in Vanni

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 February 2009, 12:23 GMT]
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said Tuesday that it was extremely alarmed at the high number of children being injured in the fighting in the northern area of Sri Lanka known as the Vanni. “Scores of injured children have been evacuated in the past week,” said UNICEF’s Duamelle. “Children are victims of this conflict by being killed, injured, recruited, displaced, separated and denied their every day needs due to the fighting.” The main injuries to children have been burns, fractures, shrapnel and bullet wounds. UNICEF reiterates the call it has made time and again to Government and the LTTE – civilians, especially children, must be given every protection from the fighting.
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ICRC evacuates 400 seriously wounded civilians via sea from Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 23:56 GMT]
The ICRC evacuated Monday more than 400 seriously wounded civilians in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) artillery barrage from Puthumaaththa'lan in Mullaiththeevu district. This is the third batch of transport through sea of seriously wounded civilians who have been waiting for further treatment at higher hospitals, according to the local staff of the ICRC. The ICRC services in Vanni are carried out by its local staff as the organisation was forced to withdraw its foreign staff from Vanni as Government of Sri Lanka did not provide necessary security guarantees for foreign nationals of the ICRC.
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260 killed, SLA shells and boxes civilians, preventing movement to safer areas

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 23:18 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) artillery barrage has boxed Theavipuram and Va'l'lipunam villages within the old 'safety zone,' trapping thousands of civilians preventing them from moving to the new 'safe zone'. Around 275 civilians are feared killed since Saturday and the roads remain continuously under heavy artillery barrage, civilians who managed to flee the area said on Monday. At least 5 humanitarian workers were killed while serving the needs of the civilians trapped inside the 'Theavipuram box'.
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SLA, SL Police arrest 100 civilians in Colombo

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 22:43 GMT]
More than one hundred civilians, majority of them Tamils, and residents of North-East were taken into custody in combined cordon and search operations conducted by the Sri Lanka Police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) in suburbs of Colombo from early morning till evening on Sunday. The arrested are being detained in police stations in the district and are being interrogated. The armed forces also took about three hundred motor bikes into their custody, police sources said.
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UN sheds responsibilities - NGO official

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 18:01 GMT]
The UN said 15 of its local staff and 75 of their dependents were not allowed to leave the conflict area by the Tamil Tigers, who had forcibly recruited one of the UN staffers, reported AFP on Monday. "The UN for the first time openly acknowledges its agenda of withdrawing even the remaining few local staff from the conflict zone, completely shedding its responsibility of caring for the civilians trapped here," said Velupillai Sivanadiyar, the president of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), the only NGO working in Vanni. The latest UN stand implies that the apex security system of the world has written off the fate of more than 250,000 civilians to the discretion of Colombo’s hostile and encircling army of 50,000, a ratio of 1:5.
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RSF accuses Colombo of "War Crimes"

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 17:36 GMT]
In an unprecedented move, Reporters sans frontières (RSF), a Paris-based media watchdog, in a press release issued today, expressed "revulsion at the death of Tamil journalist" Sathyamurthy in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) bombardment, and accused Colombo of committing war crimes, asserting "Army air strikes and artillery fire on areas where there are tens of thousands of civilians, including Tamil journalists, are war crimes." Sathyamoorthy was killed inside the "Safe Zone" demarcated by Sri Lanka late last week. Several hundreds Tamil refugees herded into the safe zone by the Government of Sri Lanka have been killed by targeted artillery and air-attacks inside the safe zone.
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Verbal shows fail to save lives in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 15:09 GMT]
“War is also theirs, peace is also theirs; therefore the solution also should be theirs. Why don’t they come out with that and end the suffering?” asked a sulking school teacher in Vanni, frustrated at the diplomatic games and dilly-dallying of world powers in protecting the life and dignity of civilians, neither by themselves nor allowing the UN to do it. But the solution some of the powers envisage in what they call the ‘post-LTTE era’ goes back to the concentration camps of the Nazi times.
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Colombo uses firebombs setting ablaze civilian targets in Vanni

[TamilNet, Monday, 16 February 2009, 11:30 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) have increasingly deployed incendiary bombs in several forms in recent attacks on Vanni civilians. A petroleum-derived liquid mixture is found used in SLAF bombardments. The same kind of bomb is also used in artillery and mortar barrage in addition to artillery-fired flying fireballs that ignite the bombed target. Recently, the makeshift hospital at Udaaiyaarkaddu was attacked with such bombs, as documented by a video, filmed from a building in the hospital.
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Genocide in Sri Lanka - Boston Globe

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 February 2009, 12:28 GMT]
Comparing the recent bombing of hospital and training artillery barrage on a demarcated safety zone, where most of the 350,000 Tamil refugees were huddled, slaughtering hundreds of them to the "Bosnian Srebrenica genocide of more than 7,000 Muslims," an op-ed article written by former Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan, Bruce Fein, Sunday said only a "genocide indictment" would "deter Rajapaksa and Fonseka from their ongoing atrocities against Tamil civilians." Pointing to US's actions against Serbia for noncooperation in apprehending genocide defendants Slobodan Milosevic et.al., Fein says, "[t]he United States should be no less scrupulous in prosecuting suspected genocide by its own citizens or permanent residents."
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US Congresswoman calls for ceasefire negotiations

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 19:28 GMT]
Democratic Congresswoman Nital M Lowey, of 18th District of New York, and Chairwoman of the powerful State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee expressed concern on the continued violence and the resulting "humanitarian disaster, including massive civilian casualties and the displacement of approximately 250,000 innocent civilians," called on Sri Lanka and the LTTE to negotiate a ceasefire immediately, in statement issued this week.
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75 feared killed in SLA shelling, elders home

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 18:11 GMT]
More than 50 civilians were feared killed in Theavipuram and Va'l'ipunam in Sri Lanka Army (SLA) artillery barrage on Friday, according to people who were reached Puthukkudiyiruppu Friday night. Meanwhile, medical staff at Maaththa'lan hospital said fifteen civilians were killed and 35 wounded at Ira'naippaalai Saturday morning and that an elders home and the surrounding area came under artillery fire where four elders were killed and around 50 persons wounded.
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Trinco town security tightened after arrival of Vanni wounded

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 15:01 GMT]
Security of Trincomalee town has been strengthened by the government security forces since the admission of two groups of Vanni civilians in Trincomalee General Hospital. Vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians are being checked by police and Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers deployed at the sentry points along roads leading to the hospital.
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Grand scale murder, rape of screened civilians feared, TNA MP alerts

[TamilNet, Saturday, 14 February 2009, 14:34 GMT]
Around 190 males were murdered and 130 females were taken for sexual abuse among the thousands of civilians so far fled and screened by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA), accused Tamil National Alliance MP S. Gajendran Saturday, citing information he received from the inmates of internment camps and from his contacts in Vavuniyaa. The sources informed him that murdered were secretly buried in Anuradhapura. "Unless there is no immediate international supervision and international monitors, situation turning into another Yugoslavia cannot be prevented," the MP said.
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