SLA fire kills child

[TamilNet, Saturday, 27 February 1999, 11:05 GMT]
A four year old child was killed when the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) opened fire indiscriminately towards the village of Vinayakapuram, near Valaichenai, 32 kilometers north of Batticaloa in the early hours of the morning today.

Sources in the area said that the Liberation Tigers and the army had traded short range mortar fire across the Valaichenai lagoon earlier in the night.

An SLA sentry by the lagoon at Peythalai, 3 kilometers east of Valaichenai town, had opened fire indiscriminately in the direction of the villages in the interior soon after the shelling had ceased.

Vinayakamoorthy Thatheesh,4, was hit in the head by the SLA fire and was killed on the spot around 12.20 a.m.

His family was displaced from Vaakarai due to SLA operations and is currently resident at Vinayakapuram said sources in the area.