Civilians visit captured town

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 February 1998, 23:59 GMT]
Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRC) sources said this evening that the Liberation Tigers had allowed civilians to visit some parts of the Kilinochchi town which had come under their control. Some of them (the civilians) had gone there to assist the LTTE remove some military hardware they said.

The civilians had gone up to the Kamathenu restaurant which was run by the LTTE before the army took the town, said the SLRC source in Vavuniya town who had started noon today from a village in the north western sector of the Tiger controlled part of the vanni.

According to reports he had heard, the LTTE has overwhelmed parts of the Paranthan base as well.This, however, could not be confirmed independently.

Meanwhile the Sri Lankan army claimed today that they had withdrawn only about five hundred meters from their original defence lines in Kilinochchi.

Nevertheless, army sources in Vavuniya unofficially acknowledged that the government security forces are not in control of Kilinochchi.

The state media announced this evening that the army has captured Kunjikkulam, a junction village in the interior to west of Omanthai where a jungle dust road branches off towards Monndumurippu situated about 65 kilometers further north in Kilinochchi.