Bravery awards after SLA rout

[TamilNet, Sunday, 06 May 2001, 20:53 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) this week saluted their units which participated in the rout of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) offensive in the southern Jaffna peninsula two weeks ago, official LTTE sources said Sunday. The special award for bravery was awarded to the men and women who had defeated a three pronged assault by fifteen thousand SLA soldiers backed by artillery, naval gunboats and air power, they said.

The Tigers defending positions from the Kilali-Eluthumadduval-Nagerkoil axis towards Elephant Pass had withstood over fifty thousand shells, rockets and bombs in the four days of battle, according to senior LTTE officers interviewed by the Voice of Tigers (VoT) radio.

The vast majority of buildings in Pallai, in the southern Jaffna peninsula were levelled by the Sri Lankan military's onslaught two weeks ago, press reports said. Several days of pounding by jet bombers, artillery and multi-barrelled rocket launchers (MBRLs) had reduced homes and other structures to rubble and an incinerated wasteland remains, the reports said.

Airstrikes have completely destroyed Pallai hospital, post office, and civil administration structures, such as the Assistant Government Agent's office and regional council offices. The market building has been seriously damaged.

Almost all homes in the previously bustling town had been destroyed in the bombardment. Blast craters 30 feet deep and covering 100 square meters, now filling with water from the peninsula's table, are everywhere, reports said.

Almost all roads are unusable due to numerous shell and bomb craters. Several of the regions famous coconut plantations had been splintered.

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