Sri Lanka Police questions TNA MP

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 16:29 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian, Mr.S.Kanagaretnam, was taken for questioning by the Sri Lanka police from Chettikulam internment camp Thursday morning, sources in Vavuniyaa said. Kanagaratnam arrived with his family from Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal area to Omanthai with IDPs when the military operation of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) forced the IDPs from the Safety Zone.
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Ban Ki Moon stresses freedom of movement, resettlement of IDPs

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 11:09 GMT]
United Nation Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, while visiting the largest internment camp in Vavuniyaa, Manik Farm, Saturday for three hours from 9:15 a.m., stressed the need for freedom of movement and immediate resettlement of the more than 300,000 Tamils held in camps. The IDPs also told Ban Ki Moon that they would want the U.N. to take full responsibility for the welfare of the refugees, sources accompanying Moon on his visit said. "The UN has failed in several measures in preventing egregious human rights violations by Sri Lanka against unarmed civilian Tamils during the last several months, and this is the last opportunity to take bold action to repair the damage to UN's reputation. UN should shed its rhetoric on sovereignty and assume full responsibility for the Tamil people," an aid worker told TamilNet after Moon's visit.
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Vanni civilians held back in Ki’linochchi in thousands

[TamilNet, Saturday, 23 May 2009, 10:04 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) continues to detain thousands of civilians in its internment camps in Ki’linochchi without sending them on to the camps in Vavuniyaa, sources in Vavuniyaa said. SLA, in its final assault on Mu’l’livaaikkaal, has herded thousands of persons including non-combatants who had been working in the political and judicial wings of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in vast overcrowded camps which lack basic facilities, the sources added.
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ICRC suspends operations, UN calls for access

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 May 2009, 10:02 GMT]
International aid agencies have called for greater access to the camps in which hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians are being held, even as the Sri Lankan government’s restrictions led to the ICRC suspending its operations. The UN and ICRC have expressed concern about the fate of people newly arriving at the camps, which are already over-stretched and over-crowded.
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Mahinda’s accounts crime

[TamilNet, Monday, 18 May 2009, 07:33 GMT]
Before his murderous assault on the so-called safety zone, Mahinda Rajapaksa has always been maintaining that the number of civilians there was only 70,000. But after the first bout of the capture of civilians last month, until Thursday, 247,908 civilians from the safety zone were registered in the internment camps of Vavuniyaa, Pulmoaddai, Mannaar and Jaffna. After the first bout, the Sri Lanka president was saying that only 15 to 20 thousand were remaining in the safety zone. Sunday evening Colombo’s militarised civil administration head of internment camps, Chandrasiri admitted more than 80,000 crossing after the latest onslaught. According to aid officials, some more thousands are still remaining.
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Doctors quit safety zone, volunteer medics remain with injured

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 23:48 GMT]
Medical Superintendent Dr. Shanmugarajah who was attending the wounded at the makeshift hospital at Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal junior school, his family, Regional Director of Health Services (RDHS) doctors, Dr Varatharajah and Dr Sathiyamoorthy, and three other doctor,s have entered the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) controlled checkpoint at Omanthai. Dr Varatharajah has been seriously wounded during his passage out of the Safety Zone, and reports from Vanni say, he has been air-lifted for medical treatment. His whereabouts are not known.
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Muslim trader abducted in Cheddiku'lam

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 12:44 GMT]
An unidentified armed eight member gang in civil dress abducted a Muslim trader with his motorbike on Thursday evening in Cheddiku'lam in Vavuniyaa district. The victim had been riding in his motorbike with a friend from Chitpiku'lam towards Maangku'lam at the time abduction.
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Tamil student from Malaysia reported missing in Katunayake

[TamilNet, Saturday, 16 May 2009, 12:38 GMT]
A Tamil youth, Rajaratnam Rajasekaran, 21, resident of Vaiaravapuliyankulam in Vavuniyaa district has been reported missing since May 12. He left Vavuniyaa and arrived in Katunayake international airport on May 12 to fly back to Malaysia to continue his studies in a Malaysian university. Rajasekaran was reported missing after he reached Katunayake, according to complaints with the police by his parents.
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JU students held in SLA internment camps seek Jaffna HRC help

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 May 2009, 11:39 GMT]
Fourteen Jaffna University students from Vanni district detained in Kaithadi Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camp along with other civilians from Vanni have complained to Jaffna Human Rights Commission (HRC) officials that their human rights have been violated by denial of permission to continue their studies in Jaffna University, Jaffna HRC sources said. HRC Jaffna has called for a detailed report on this issue from SLA Jaffna Commanding Officer, Jaffna Government Agent and the Vice-chancellor of Jaffna University.
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61 Vanni elderly IDPs buried in one mass-pit in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 May 2009, 11:21 GMT]
Bodies of sixty one elderly Internally Displaced (IDPs) kept in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa General Hospital were buried in a single mass-pit in general cemetery located in Poonthooddam Monday evening. All of those buried died due to natural causes in welfare centres where large numbers of IDPs who fled from the war from Vanni are sheltered.
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Vanni elderly IDPs die in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 16:11 GMT]
The number of deaths among elderly persons in Vavuniyaa IDP camp is on the increase. From May 1 till May 11, sixty-one elderly persons had died due to natural causes. Their bodies have been lying in the mortuary of the Vavuniyaa general hospital awaiting relatives to identify them, sources in Vavuniyaa said.
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RSF condemn's Channel 4 journalists expulsion

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 12 May 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Referring to the expulsion of British Channel 4's three journalists from Sri Lanka for exposing "atrocious living conditions for [Tamil] civilians [in Vavuniyaa internment camps] and ill-treatment they have suffered" Reporters without Borders (RSF), the Paris-based media watchdog, said in a press release issued Monday that the reasons for expulsions are "unfounded and unacceptable" and that the expulsion is the "latest incident in a long list of serious press freedom violations connected with reporting of the war, including murders of journalists, arbitrary or abusive imprisonment, torture, ill-treatment, censorship and expulsions."
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Japan urged to act over Sri Lanka crisis

[TamilNet, Monday, 11 May 2009, 19:14 GMT]
Four international organisations - Human Rights Watch, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, International Crisis Group and Amnesty International - released a joint letter to the Japanese Prime Minister Monday, calling on Japan “to play a more active role in confronting the unfolding catastrophe in Sri Lanka.” The four organisations called on Japan “to support efforts for the [United Nations] Security Council to keep the situation in Sri Lanka under close and regular review and to consider the situation in Sri Lanka formally at the Security Council.” Meanwhile, American Tamils after a rally and a night vigil Friday in New York submitted a memorandum to the Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations.
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Tamil survivors bear phosphorous burns - report

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 23:24 GMT]
Tamil civilians who escaped the Sri Lankan military bombardment, treated by French doctors, included those with injuries from phosphorous bombs, AFP reported. Doctors at the French field hospital Cheddikulam, Vavuniya said that among those who were treated were those with white hands, possibly caused by burns from phosphorus- an incendiary weapon which is banned from use in civilian areas under an international convention. According to Peter Herby, head of the ICRC's (International Committee of the Red Cross) Arms Unit, there are specific rules on the use of white phosphorous that go beyond the general rules of war.
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Aid workers tell donors not to fund Sri Lanka, reports Channel-4's Walsh

[TamilNet, Sunday, 10 May 2009, 21:14 GMT]
"This is a man-made humanitarian disaster, the aid worker explained. "I am in the strange position of just keep telling all our donors when they come here to NOT to give money,"" writes Channel-4's Nick Paton Walsh, quoting an aid worker inside an internment camp in Vavuniyaa. The Channel-4 crew was deported on the directions of Sri Lanka's Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse for reporting allegations of abuse, rape, and ill-treatment of Tamils held in internment camps.
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Rains expose callousness of mass imprisonment

[TamilNet, Friday, 08 May 2009, 16:05 GMT]
Heavy rains earlier this week flooded the internment camp created in the name of Ananda Coomaraswamy in Vavuniyaa where the last influx of captured civilians of Vanni are held in temporary tents. But, as 'war prisoners' they didn't have the freedom to move to dryer places, said an aid worker in Vavuniyaa, condemning the International Community and the UN for insisting on the capture of civilians but not taking adequate responsibility of them and their freedom of movement even in times of such a situation.
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Deaths of elderly Vanni IDPs increase in Vavuniyaa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 May 2009, 13:44 GMT]
Death toll of elderly persons displaced from Vanni due to military operations and held in detention centres in Vavuniyaa is on the increase, sources in Vavuniyaa said. On Monday alone ten elderly persons died in detention centers located in Vavuniyaa and their bodies had been handed over to the Vavuniyaa general hospital, the sources added.
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2 elderly women die of starvation in Jaffna SLA detention centres

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 05 May 2009, 16:59 GMT]
A 79-year-old woman detainee in the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) detention centre in Mirusuvil Roman Catholic Church and a 75-year-old woman in Kathadi Saiva Children Home SLA detention centre are reported dead due to starvation, sources in Jaffna. Jaffna magistrate court, being informed of the deaths, is awaiting post mortem examination reports from medical authorities for further legal action, the sources added.
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7,000 Tamils in Vanni killed, 14,000 injured in 3 months, TNA tells David Miliband

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 11:53 GMT]
Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Trincomalee district MP and parliamentary group leader, R. Sampanthan, and parliamentarian Suresh Premachandran told the visiting British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, that 7,000 Tamils in Vanni have been killed and 14,000 injured in the last three months, but the International Community has remained inactive without taking any action to stop the killings, TNA sources said. The TNA parliamentarians also told Miliband that more than 300 Tamil youths in Vavuniyaa detention centre have been arrested by Sri Lanka Army (SLA) and that the SLA has not revealed the whereabouts of the arrested youths to their parents.
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Events unfold typical of Nazi concentration camps

[TamilNet, Thursday, 30 April 2009, 10:13 GMT]
Food parcels were thrown to people after making them run like dogs, and two children were killed in the melee in the barbed-wire camp at Menik Farm, Vavuniyaa. A 12-year-old boy on Monday and a 7-year-old boy on Tuesday were crushed to death in the melee, media sources in Vavuniyaa said. Meanwhile, around 300 Tamil youth from several camps in the area were forcefully taken by the Sri Lanka army, in the name of arrest, amidst protests of family members on Tuesday. Recently, 60 people have died of sickness in the camps, the sources further said. A total of 154,368 Vanni civilians are in captivity by the SLA up to Wednesday and out of them, 90, 181, were captured after 20 April.
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