2ND LEAD (ADDS DETAILS)

SLA shoots 6 including women, children in Cheddiku'lam camp

[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 September 2009, 12:36 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) on Saturday around 6:00 p.m. opened fire and injured six civilians including two women and three children in Cheddiku'lam internment camp, according to initial reports reaching from Vavuniyaa. One 8-year-old child, seriously wounded in the episode, was transferred to Anuradhapura hospital from Vavuniyaa hospital, medical sources in Vavuniyaa said.

The unfortunate group of six is said to have gone for collecting firewood in the surroundings of the camp.

World Food Programme (WFP) has stopped supplying cooked meals from 17 September. The inmates are dependent on dry rations (rice, sugar and dahl), but they lack proper facilities to cook the meals.

Civilians inside the camps are forced to get other materials, firewood, salt, tamarind etc., from external sources.

The civilians who tried to cross over the camps to get firewood were shot by the SLA.

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan military officials in Colombo said the SLA opened fire when civilians who tried to 'escape' started to stone the SLA soldiers when they were blocked from leaving the camp. The military officials put the number of wounded civilians at three.

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