Land mine attack kills three

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 January 1999, 19:16 GMT]
Three civilians were killed and two home guards were wounded in a mine attack by the Liberation Tigers around 3.00 p.m. today at Mahakachchakodiya about 7 miles north east of Vavuniya town, off Maamaduwa, sources said.

A tractor in which the home guards and civilians were travelling, had hit a mine planted by the LTTE. Sources said that the Tigers had opened fire on the homeguards as they set off the mine.

Sources in Vavuniya hospital said one of the injured home guards, Lal Pathmasiri was brought there and was later transferred to Anuradhapura along with another home guard who was seriously injured.

However, officials in the area said that three had been killed in the incident and they were unable to confirm whether the dead were civilians or not.

Mahakachchakodiya is a militarised Sinhala border village.

Many Sinhala civilians here are employed as Sri Lankan Army (SLA) trained home guards and are issued with automatic and semi-automatic rifles.

The SLA combines them with troops engaged in patrolling the border areas.

Men from this village go armed to cultivate their fields under the army's supervision as these lands lie very close to the no go area between that part of the Vanni controlled by the Tigers and the Forward Defence Lines (FDLs) of the SLA.

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