STF shoot Tamil youth

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 19 November 1997, 23:59 GMT]
The Special Task Force (STF) in Kaluwanchikkudy, about thirty kilometres south of Batticaloa town, shot dead a youth on Monday night Nov. 17 in the lagoon near the Eruvil jetty.

The STF claimed that the youth identified as Ramesh was an LTTE member and had been in a boat with three others when the boat was fired upon by them.

The STF informed the ICRC in Batticaloa that they had the body of a Tiger cadre to be handed over to the LTTE on the other side of the lagoon.

The ICRC however checked with the Tigers who had informed it the boy had nothing to do with them.

The ICRC then told the STF that they could not accept the body as the it was not that of an LTTE cadre.

The parents of the boy went to the STF camp at Kaluwanchikudy this afternoon with the local Grama Sevaka (village officer) and took over the body of the boy.

Several cases like this where the SLA and STF have attempted to hand over bodies of civilians to ICRC claiming that them to those of LTTE have been reported in the past in the Batticaloa district. As a consequence, the ICRC now checks with the LTTE before acceding to such requests from the SLA and STF.