800,000 landmines remain in Thenmaraadchi FDL: DCO in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 April 2012, 11:46 GMT]
The De-mining Coordinating Office attached to the District Secretariat of Jaffna, on Friday said that it estimated around 800,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXO) as remaining in the former Forward Defence Line along Naakarkoayil, Mukamaalai and Ki'laali in Thenmaraadchi. The DCO is the civil authority coordinating that the de-mining is carried out according to UN procedures and is responsible for clearing areas vacated or otherwise cleared by the SL military operated ‘Humanitarian de-mining Units’. The recent tragic incident at Ketpali, where two teenagers sustained serious injuries, has taken place at an area, which is yet to be cleared by the coordinating office, according to DCO official V. Murugadas, who also said that the people, who are interested in resettling in their lands, have lost patience and start visiting the areas without verifying the status of de-mining.
Full story >>

Military-managed de-mining endangers security of Eezham Tamils

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 April 2012, 18:27 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lankan military, which dominates de-mining activities in the former Forward Defence Line areas and in the so-called High Security Zone under its occupation, was not doing the de-mining work according to established norms and procedures, complain humanitarian workers in Jaffna, formerly attached to independent de-mining operations of international NGOs. On Monday, two teenage boys sustained severe injuries, one of them losing his leg, caught in landmine explosion in Ketpali in Thenmaraadchi while they were plucking co-conuts at a palm grove that had been cleared by the SL military. A few days ago, school children at Ki'laali School found unexploded shells from the sand brought inside the school for construction work. The children were saved by the timely intervention of the teachers, the NGO workers further said.
Full story >>

Paramilitary men arrested for alleged abduction, slaying of Thenmaraadchi woman

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 10 April 2012, 15:40 GMT]
Three persons including a Sri Lankan military operated Civil Defence Force (CDF) paramilitary person and an alleged EPDP man, have been detained by SL Police in Thenmaraadchi on suspicion of abduction, alleged rape and slaying of 28-year-old Atputhamalar Subramaniyam from Thanangki'lappu, who was reported missing since November 13 and later found dead near a Sri Lanka Army bund on 25 January 2012. Women rights groups in the peninsula have urged global watchdogs to follow the conduct of SL Police in the investigations on the detained suspects.
Full story >>

Occupying SL Army operates behind narcotics trade in Tamil country

[TamilNet, Friday, 30 March 2012, 22:57 GMT]
Sri Lankan military intelligence is allegedly behind a systematic programme of narcotics trade in the North and East of Eezham Tamils homeland, aiming the Tamil students as the target group, reliable sources in Jaffna told TamilNet Friday. On Thursday, three narcotics traders, including the distributors from South, were arrested on Somasundaram Road near the District Secretariat of Jaffna, while they were distributing narcotics. Narcotics dealers sent from South engage in the trade involving former members of Tamil paramilitary groups, news sources further said. However, the Sri Lankan police remained tight-lipped on the arrest of southern narcotics drug dealers on Thursday in the area having leading Tamil schools.
Full story >>

Resettled Tamil woman's body recovered near SLA bund in Thenmaraadchi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 26 January 2012, 23:55 GMT]
The skeleton of a recently slain 28-year-old unmarried Tamil woman has been recovered near an abandoned military bund used by the Sri Lanka Army in A'rukuve'li, located along Kearatheevu Road (Jaffna - Mannaar Road) in Thenmaraadchi on Wednesday. The victim, Atputhamalar Subramaniyam, who had resettled in Thanangki'lappu near Ma'ravanpulavu of Thenmaraadchi last year, has been missing since November 13. But, her family was receiving SMS messages for some time from her cell phone. The abductors have been sending the messages with the intention of making the family to believe that she was not abducted, relatives of the victim who came for the funeral on Thursday told media. Tension prevailed in the recently resettled area where the occupying SLA is still on random patrol.
Full story >>

Aaraip-pattai

[TamilNet, Sunday, 18 September 2011, 04:44 GMT]
The thicket of Aarai shrub
Full story >>

Abandoned Tamil schools acquired by occupying SL military

[TamilNet, Thursday, 18 August 2011, 17:09 GMT]
Sri Lanka military occupying the country of Eezham Tamils acquires abandoned Tamil schools for converting them into military camps. Occupying military officers are busy in recent days in collecting particulars of the abandoned schools in the Vanni districts as well as in the Vadamaraadchi, Thenmaraadchi and the islands divisions of the Jaffna district. The occupying military has ordered the northern directorate of education to submit particulars of all abandoned schools to facilitate military’s increasing demand for infrastructure facilities. Using the abandoned schools, 30 new military camps are planned in the Jaffna peninsula alone. Occupying military has a particular programme to first intensely militarise and Sinhalicise the islands off the Jaffna peninsula. It makes no secret about it to the Tamils remaining in the islands.
Full story >>

SL police refuses permission to TNA to hold election meetings

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 July 2011, 11:44 GMT]
Sri Lanka police in Jaffna refuses permission to civic election candidates of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to conduct public meetings. Instead, the ‘advise’ the candidates to engage in door-to-door campaign. But in the meantime, presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa and a team of 13 SL ministers are camping in Jaffna to conduct Colombo’s campaign in various ways, misusing SL government’s administration and resources, complain the TNA candidates. SL president Mahinda Rajapaksa is also expected in Jaffna to campaign for the civic elections in the guise of opening a school building and laying foundation stones for certain projects.
Full story >>

Sampanthan proposes SL minister dismisses

[TamilNet, Saturday, 09 July 2011, 02:55 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R. Sampanthan, moving an adjournment motion in Sri Lanka’s parliament Thursday and speaking on it said that his objective was “to develop a just settlement within an undivided Sri Lanka,” adding that this approach has been widely endorsed by the international community, notably India. The co-chairs have clearly stated and have clearly ruled out any form of division of this country, he further said. On the same day in the SL parliament, SL minister Nimal Sripala de Silva said that his government would not offer a federal solution to Tamils. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka occupying the Tamil country is intensifying its war against the TNA as more and more of the TNA candidates and supporters are attacked and intimidated in civic elections in the north, news sources in Jaffna said.
Full story >>

Basil-show ‘resettlement’ ends up in further misery and abandonment of IDPs

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 July 2011, 12:49 GMT]
The Raamaavil camp inmates, who were suddenly herded out in the middle of the night by the occupying SL Army to make a show of ‘resettlement’ during the visit of the presidential sibling Basil Rajapaksa to Jaffna, are now facing further misery. Staying in two small schools in Vadamaraadchi East, without food or facilities they are left to their own ‘resettlement’ in their villages, where they find even the foundations of their houses had been dug out. They are abandoned, say TNA parliamentarians who with much difficulty got ‘permission’ from the SL Army to visit them Tuesday. But it is more than that: they are left in an open prison with discouragement to resettle, where thousands of Sinhala fishermen are ‘licensed’ to come, commented a social worker in Jaffna, pointing to the strategic significance of the area linking Jaffna with Vanni.
Full story >>

Ooraaththu'rai (Kayts), Pa'n'naiththu'rai, Matara

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 03 May 2011, 06:45 GMT]
The port of ships or small ships
The port of large boats or cargo boats
The big port
Full story >>

Abductions of under-age youth escalate in North

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 April 2011, 23:05 GMT]
Unidentified men from South last Sunday abducted a 13-year-old Tamil boy, K. Diluxon, from Uruththirapuram in Ki'linochchi. The boy managed to escape from his abductors while they parked their vehicle in Vavuniyaa. Meanwhile, a 17-year-old girl, Sangarapillai Maithrayi, from Vallaarai in Thenmaraadchi in Jaffna district was reported missing since Monday, according to complaints registered at Human Rights Commission in Jaffna.
Full story >>

SLA-tortured teacher dies in Jaffna hospital

[TamilNet, Monday, 28 March 2011, 11:25 GMT]
28-year-old Sampanthan Sakthitharan a male teacher at Chaavakachcheari Hindu College, who was severely tortured by the occupying Sri Lanka Army in Jaffna at Thirunelveali on 15 March and dumped on the side of the road three hours later fought for his life at Jafna Teaching Hospital for 10 days with serious injuries in his head and finally succumbed to his injuries Saturday at Jaffna Teaching Hospital.
Full story >>

Nu'naavil

[TamilNet, Friday, 18 March 2011, 05:57 GMT]
The pond of Nu’naa trees
Full story >>

SLA-operated paramilitary responsible for Thenmaraadchi woman's killing

[TamilNet, Sunday, 13 March 2011, 10:23 GMT]
A paramilitary group that works with the Sri Lanka Armed forces in Vavuniyaa has been identified as the group behind the abduction and brutal murder of a Tamil woman from Meesaalai In Thenmarachchi last week. In an inquiry statement as part of the inquest proceedings held by the Magistrates Court, the husband of the murdered woman, has revealed that he had hired the Vavuniyaa-based group to abduct and murder his wife.
Full story >>

Canadian Tamil husband suspected in hiring southerners to kill wife in Jaffna

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 March 2011, 06:44 GMT]
38-year-old Kukathasan Shanthini of Meesaalai in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna, was abducted Sunday and her body with signs of torture and defacement was found Monday in a remote neighbourhood of Kiraampuvil temple. Sri Lanka Police in Chaavakachcheari suspects that her husband, who has recently come from Canada has hired assassins from Colombo. Shanthini and the 8-year-old child of the couple also have recently returned from India after disappointment in waiting for her Canadian visa to join with her husband.
Full story >>

Occupying military orders VVT people to register before 10:00 a.m. Wednesday

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 March 2011, 20:40 GMT]
In a draconian order, the SL military occupying the country of Eezham Tamils has asked the people of Valveddiththu’rai, a densely populated town in the northern coast of Jaffna, to register themselves with the military, along with family photos, before 10:00 a.m. Wednesday. The shocked Eezham Tamils wonder whether their country is fast turning into an open concentration camp for them. The order comes even as there is a case against such registrations filed by TNA is pending in the court. The notice to the public to register within 24 hours and forms for that are distributed by the SL Army to local shops. On the order of the Army, the local village officials were seen carrying out the work even during the night. People feel that the show of terror is a revenge for the participation of the people of VVT in the funeral of Parvathi Amma, despite military harassment.
Full story >>

SLA restricts movement of IDPs in Kodikaamam Camp

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 February 2011, 12:43 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army has instructed outsiders to get prior permission from its sentry points to visit the uprooted civilians from Vanni staying in Kodikaamam Ramaavil IDP camp in Thenmaraadchi, Jaffna. The inmates who were earlier allowed to leave camps and work without any restriction, are from this week onwards have been instructed to register themselves with SLA sentry point, before leaving for work and after their return.
Full story >>

SL Military enforces photo-registration of families in Valikaamam, Jaffna

[TamilNet, Monday, 14 February 2011, 19:03 GMT]
Against their wishes, the local officials are forced by the occupying military to undertake Nazi-style photo registration of families in the Jaffna Peninsula. A meeting to this effect was convened at Uduvil Girls College last week by the commanders of the 513 division of Sri Lanka Army, headquartered at Uduvil. Village officials and SL police officials of Cha’ndilippaay, Maanippaay, Thillippazhai and Chunnaakam polici divisions were asked to attend this meeting. Despite their protests, the village officials attended the meeting were instructed to collaborate with the military in the nearest camps during the registration procedures. Civil officials in Jaffna are highly worried that their participation in the military project would earn them animosity of the public.
Full story >>

HSZ lands in Jaffna sold to Sinhala businessmen

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 09 February 2011, 01:56 GMT]
Large stretches of lands in Jaffna Peninsula in the so-called High Security Zones and in other areas where people are not permitted to resettle in the guise of landmines are hurriedly sold to Sinhala businessmen ostensibly to start ‘industrial estates’. 100 acres of land near Ezhuthumadduvaa’l railway station along the A9 Highway has been recently sold to an influential Sinhala businessman. Another Sinhalese attempted buying 80 acres between Ki’laali and Puloappazhai. Occupying military officials are also said to be interested in buying lands. Industrial estates are a smokescreen, but Sinhala colonisation in that stretch to completely seal off the people of Jaffna within their own peninsula is the strategy, political circles in Jaffna said. Meanwhile, in Valikaamam HSZ, a Sinhalese is said to be running a farm at Vasaavi’laan and another indiscriminately quarry limestone near Keerimalai.
Full story >>