Murunkan ambush toll rises

[TamilNet, Friday, 02 April 1999, 05:58 GMT]
Five Sri Lankan Policemen were killed and six reported missing after an LTTE attack near Murunkan in the Mannar district at around 12.30 a.m. this morning. The LTTE attacked a bunker on the Mannar-Vavuniya road at Kattaiadampan, manned by military trained Police constables.

Sources in Mannar said that the missing Policemen were also killed in the attack by the Liberation Tigers who had taken the bodies away.

Earlier, sources at the Mannar District Police Headquarters said that they were notified of only five deaths in the LTTE attack.

Kattaiadampan is 32 kilometers east of Mannar town.

The SLA's 21-4 brigade was located in Kattaiadampan until it was pulled out and re deployed for Operation Rana Gosa I.

The army moved into this area when it brought the high way to Mannar under its control during Operation Edibala in early 1997.

The inhabitants of Kattaiadmapan were completely displaced as troops established a large camp in the village itself. The neighbouring hamlet of Isaimaalaiththaalvu was also abandoned when the SLA set up sentry points there.

The Police and the STF have established separate camps in the area since the army moved out last month. Most of the SLA positions on the Mannar highway lie abandoned now.

According to reports reaching Mannar town this evening the Tigers had recovered the bodies of four of the Policemen who were reported missing this morning.

The LTTE took the bodies to Naanaattaan in the southern interior of the Mannar mainland.

Naanaattaan is 13 kilometers directly south east of Mannar town and five kilometers west of Murunkan.

This large village was nominally under the control of the SLA until last month.

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