7TH LEAD

5 civilians killed, 16 wounded in air strikes, hospital reports blood shortage

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 31 December 2008, 04:26 GMT]
Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers attacked a civilian settlement near Murugananda school in Murasumoaddai on Paranthan - Mullaiththeevu Road killing two females of a family and a male on the spot. Another man, who was seriously wounded, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. 16 civilians, including a couple, were wounded. The attack has targeted three civilian settlements in Murasumoaddai Wednesday around 8:00 a.m. The indiscriminate bombardment on fleeing civilians, Internally Displaced Person's huts, close to the ICRC Karaichchi branch office, a school, temple and agricultural lands aims at instilling fear at the minds of the civilians in Vanni, observers said.

A motorcyclist escaped with wounds, but his bike was thrown 70 meters away from the road.

Medical Superintendent of Vanni's main hospital at Tharmapuram, Dr. S. Sathiyamoorthy, has placed the hospital and the surrounding area on red alert for blood shortage as Sri Lanka Army (SLA) launched artillery attack on the village after the carnage by the SLAF.



The Sri Lankan air strike targeted civilian houses behind Murugananda school, two settlements of refugees, one at Chelliah Shop Junction and the other behind Cheaththukka'ndi Amman temple at Murasumoaddai. A few hours later, the SLAF fighter jets returned to the same village and dropped bombs while a cow herder, was moving away with his cows from Paranthan to his native village, Tharmapuram. Two others were also wounded in the second bombardment.

The cow herder wounded in the second bombardment was identified as Mayalaku Vijayaratnam, 24. The other two civilians wounded were Nadarasa Thavanesan, 36, and Columbus, 24,

Meanwhile, a 29-year-old male, T. Sasikaran, was seriously injured when Sri Lanka Army (SLA) fired artillery shells targeting settlements in 2nd Mile Post. Mr. Sasikaran wounded in his head was rushed to hospital in unconscious state and is at the stage of coma, according to the latest update from the medical sources Wednesday night.

24-year-old Juda Margarat Aseervatham, 55-year-old Asservaatham Maryamma and Markandu Sivanandan were killed on the spot.

52-year-old Chandrabose and 37-year-old Kannan, two of the wounded who were admitted at Tharmapuram hospital, succumbed to their injuries at the Intensive Care Unit.

The wounded civilians in the first bombardment on three localities were identified as I. Nirmalan, 15, S. Ragulan, 21, Arumaiththurai Jesinald, 26, Ramachandran Kumanan, 30, Selvarajah Kulendran, 33, K. Jeyasri, 38, Somasundaram Chandrakumar, 43, Annakkodi Chandramary, 45, Vellaichamy Annakkodi, 49, S. Balasundaram, 51, Palaniayappan Subramaniyam, 52, Ranjithamalar, 58, and Saravana Bavananthan, 62.











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