Vanni's food supplies ruined by exposure

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 November 1997, 23:59 GMT]
Twenty nine lorry loads of food, mostly flour and sugar, sent to the Vanni have been ruined due to delays in cross loading at Parayanalankulam on the Vavuniya Mannar road.

Hundreds of bags of sugar, flour and other food items were exposed to the heavy rains last week at the cross loading point.

The army has stipulated all supplies sent to the Tiger controlled Vanni should be unloaded at Parayanalankulam and be reloaded onto lorries that come from the 'uncleared' areas through the Uyilankulam junction two miles further west on the road to Mannar. (areas controlled by the LTTE are officially described by the SLA as uncleared areas)

The army checks the goods before they are loaded again onto the lorries from the Vanni.

There are, however, no sheds to protect the foodstuffs from the elements in the area designated for the 'cross loading' at Parayanalankulam.

The practice of cross loading was first introduced by the SLA at Thandikkulam, one Kilometer north on the road to Kilinchchi from Vavuniya town, during Eelam War Two ( 1990 -1994), ostensibly to prevent the smuggling of banned goods into LTTE controlled areas.