Gurunagar fishing boats used in SLN naval exercise

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 11 October 2006, 00:05 GMT]
Gurunagar Fishermen's Development Society made an urgent appeal to the Government Agent (GA) Jaffna, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission (SLHRC) in Jaffna Tuesday to help recover their fishing boats and outboard motors confiscated by the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN), sources in Jaffna said.

The fishermen said in the appeal that more than one hundred fishing boats equipped with outboard motors have been used by the armed forces in combat exercises during the last 2 days in the Gurunagar bay.

The fishermen allege that their boats are likely to be used in attacks against the Liberation Tigers who control the Pooneryn region across the shallow waters of Jaffna lagoon.

The heavy SLN boats are not effective on the Gurunagar shallow sea, explained the fishermen.

Amidst warnings from the LTTE of a major SLA offensive is imminent, the fishermen said they fear they may face economic ruin loosing their boats.

SLN is also attempting to confiscate the boats and the outboard motors which some fishermen had managed to take home for safety, said the fishermen in their appeal.