SLA strengthens Jaffna coastal defences

[TamilNet, Monday, 27 May 2002, 12:39 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Army is constructing new bunkers and check posts in the coastal areas of Vadamarachchi division in Jaffna, residents said Monday. The military began strengthening its coastal defenses in the villages of Polikandy, Thikkam, Sakkottai, Manalkaadu and Kudaththanai. The SLA is also engaged in fortifying its camps in the interior sectors of the division, sources said.
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Thondaman visits Jaffna

[TamilNet, Thursday, 23 May 2002, 19:02 GMT]
Estate Infrastructure and Housing Minister Mr.Arumugam Thondaman arrived in Jaffna via the Kandy-Jaffna Road (A9) on a two-day official visit. He held a conference with Government officials at the Jaffna Secretariat Thursday and was told that more than five thousand houses in the Maruthankerni division and Thenmaradchchi area alone had been destroyed and damaged due to military operations by the Sri Lanka Army.
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Tamil mine-clearers struggle without equipment, funds

[TamilNet, Saturday, 18 May 2002, 18:20 GMT]
(NEWS FEATURE) The estimated 1.4 million pieces of live ammunition, including 86,700 anti-personnel mines, remaining in territory formerly controlled by the Sri Lanka Army are taking a long time to clear due to the lack of equipment and funding, according to the official in charge of clearing the unexploded ordnance.
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Displaced fast demanding immediate resettlement

[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 May 2002, 09:17 GMT]
The displaced people held a one-day token fasting in front of the Tellipalai Assistant Government Office Wednesday demanding the government that it should take immediate steps to resettle them in their own villages, which are located in the high security zone.People from Tellipalai, Myliddy, Kankesanthurai, Vasavilan, Maviddapuram, Kadduwan and other areas participated in the fasting, reports from Jaffna said.
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Kovilkandy returnees struggle to survive

[TamilNet, Monday, 13 May 2002, 10:19 GMT]
Fisherfolk who recently resettled in Kovilkandy in the Thenmaradchi sector of the Jaffna peninsula complain that the Sri Lanka armed forces are harassing them and preventing them from fishing, press reports said Monday. Around thirty families live have resettled in the area, having initially fled the heavy fighting there in early 2000, the Thinakural reported.
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Islet residents protest military zone to SLMM

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 May 2002, 15:26 GMT]
A community group representing residents in the islets off Jaffna has appealed to the ceasefire monitors to allow Tamil Tiger cadres there and to put an end to harassment by the Sri Lanka Navy stationed into the area. The Jaffna based Tamil daily Uthayan said the residents’ two demands are detailed in a report the islanders were to hand present to the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) in a meeting Tuesday.
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Children returning to Trinco suffer malnutrition

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 May 2002, 20:44 GMT]
Sixty eight percent of the children returning from Vanni with their parents to be resettled in Trincomalee have been found underweight, their growth stunted by malnutrition, according to a medical survey done by the Sri Lanka Red Cross (SLRC) in the eastern district.
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SLA urged to reopen Nagarkovil main road

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 16 April 2002, 19:13 GMT]
The Divisional Secretary (DS) of Point Pedro and education officials in the Vadamaradchi area in Jaffna district have appealed to the Sri Lanka Army to reopen the main road from Point Pedro through Nagar Kovil to Aliyawallai to enable smooth functioning of schools and to allow free movement of resettled families.
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"Halt resettlement in Thenmaradchi" - Jaffna Mayor

[TamilNet, Saturday, 29 September 2001, 06:30 GMT]
The Jaffna Municipal Council Mayor said that during the past six months sixty civilians have lost their limbs due to landmine blasts in Thenmarachchi area in the peninsula. The meeting of the Jaffna Muncipal Council held Friday discussed the danger people undergo when being resettled in areas captured by Sri Lanka army. The discussion took place following the deaths of six members of a family recently at Kattaithirai, Kopay in Jaffna in a pressure mine blast.
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‘Don’t resettle in areas mined by SLA’ - LTTE

[TamilNet, Friday, 28 September 2001, 04:44 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers said Friday that displaced civilians in Jaffna are being resettled in areas where land mines laid by the Sri Lanka army haven’t been removed. They said that the family of six that was killed in a land mine explosion on 24 September was among the displaced residents who were resettled in Irupalai where no SLA mines fields have been cleared so far. Meanwhile, Jaffna court sources said that residents of Irupalai had complained to Jaffna District Judge T. Vignarajah about the danger they face from land mines left behind in the village by the SLA when he visited the scene of the explosion that killed the family on 24 September. The sources said that the matter would be recorded at the inquest.
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Base may displace thousands

[TamilNet, Monday, 06 August 2001, 16:38 GMT]
Following the establishment of a new Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) camp in the village of Varothiar Nagar, about six km north of Trincomalee town Sunday, about two thousand Tamil people living there face imminent displacement for the third time in their life.
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SLA bid to relocate Trinco IDPs opposed

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 June 2001, 06:07 GMT]
Sri Lankan security forces told government officials in Trincomalee to transfer over 1500 internally displaced Tamil persons from Alles Garden refugee camp to Kuchchaveli, 38 kilometres north of Trincomalee town. "The security forces in Trincomalee have taken this step to ensure the security of army and navy camps in the area", a government official said.
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LTTE cautions against war zone resettlement

[TamilNet, Friday, 01 June 2001, 18:10 GMT]
The Liberation Tigers called on the people of the Thenmaradchi division in Jaffna not to resettle in their villages as the area is still a war zone. The Tigers, in a leaflet released in Jaffna Friday, said "the enemy and his lackeys are trying use our people as human shields. We do not want our people to suffer again from the calamities of war and destruction. Therefore we request them not to resettle in Thenmaradchi until we issue an official announcement."
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Police refuse permission for Jaffna protest

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 May 2001, 17:36 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Police in Jaffna Tuesday refused permission for a demonstration by people who were displaced from the Thenmaradchi division of the peninsula last May due to fighting between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lanka army. Families displaced from Chavakachcheri sought permission this week to hold a demonstration on May 11 Friday to demand that they be resettled soon or be allowed to go to their homes and retrieve their belongings.
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ICRC outlines work in war zone

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 April 2001, 19:08 GMT]
"The present conflict should come to an end if the displaced living in camps and welfare centers in the Trincomalee district to return to their own villages", Mr. Daniel Shriber, Head of the Delegation of the International Committee of Red Cross in Trincomalee told a press briefing Wednesday. Answering a question he added, "The ICRC is not in a position to provide adequate security for resettled people in Kuchchaveli, Thiriyai villages in the north of Trincomalee district.
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Little hope for resettling Tamil villages in Trinco

[TamilNet, Saturday, 21 April 2001, 21:00 GMT]
"Wild animals are roaming in many abandoned Tamil villages in the Trincomalee district. Entire populations of these were forced to flee their homes due to military actions more than fifteen years ago. Around five thousand displaced are still living in fifteen welfare centers and the rest are living with their relatives in Trincomalee town. Several Tamil villages in the district, particularly in the Kuchchaveli division, are without basic facilities such as schools, and dispensaries. There is little hope that any funds for development would be allocated to such areas by the District Co-ordinating Committee because there aren't any Tamil MP's on it", said a senior Sri Lankan government official in Trincomalee Sunday.
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Sri Lanka Navy bombards Trinco village

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 April 2001, 18:52 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Navy bombarded Soodaikkudah, a coastal hamlet south of Trincomalee, Saturday afternoon on Tamil New Year, residents said. Four boats and a house were damaged when the Sri Lanka Navy gunboats shelled the village from 3.30 p.m. Saturday, according to them. People fled the village in November last year following persistent attacks by the SLN. They were sheltered as refugees in a school in Sampoor, a large village west of Soodaikudah until they resettled in February on an assurance the ICRC had obtained from the Navy.
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Eastern Tamils march against eviction

[TamilNet, Sunday, 25 March 2001, 13:39 GMT]
Hundreds of Tamil men and women of Linganagar, a settlement in Trincomalee town on land which the Sri Lanka army claims to own, marched through the streets of Trincomalee Sunday morning amidst tight security by armed police shouting slogans and carrying banners and placards demanding the government that they should be allowed to live on their land.
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Nedunkerni OPD reopens, residents resettle

[TamilNet, Thursday, 15 March 2001, 17:36 GMT]
The OPD of the Nedunkerni hospital reopened Wednesday after more than three years, according to reports reaching Vavuniya. The peripheral hospital was mostly destroyed and thousands of families in this Vanni town were rendered refugees overnight when the Sri Lanka army captured the general area of Nedunkerni from the Liberation Tigers in May 1997, during the first phase of Jaya Sikurui, the biggest military operation ever attempted by Colombo. The Tigers retook Nedunkerni, 42 kilometres northeast of Vavuniya, in November 1999. More than a thousand families have been resettled here since January this year after extensive clearing of anti personnel mines (APLM) in the town and its hinterland, government officials in Vavuniya said.
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Villagers appeal for bombing to stop

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 14 November 2000, 18:55 GMT]
An appeal has been made to the President of Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to stop the indiscriminate shelling and aerial bombing on Ralkulai and Navaladi villages in the Mutur division, south of eastern Trincomalee town. Hundreds of villagers have signed this memorandum, TamilNet sources in Mutur said.
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