Sri Lanka - Heavy SF shelling Kills 15 Injures 30 including children in Mulaitivu

G. Vickram - TNS

Mulaitivu - 15 civilians were killed including five children when barrages of shell fired by Sri Lankan Security Forces (SF) from 1:45 p.m. on Tuesday hit Visuvamadu, Udayrakaddu, Suthanthirapuram, and Manikapuram internally displaced civilians in Mulaitivu area. At least 30 civilians also were badly wounded according to the sources in Mulaitivu.

6 shells fell on an area where 25 families were internally displaced and lived together. This attack alone 2 people were killed including a young boy. SF troopers' indiscriminate aerial and shell attacks killed hundreds and many hundreds injured within past few months while displaced over 350,000 including 40,000 children who are living in subhuman conditions.

A catastrophic situation developed in Vanni for these innocent civilians as they are facing annihilation as indiscriminate land, sea, and air attacks on them by the Sri Lankan forces in 400 sq miles Mulaitivu area daily. These people facing severe shortages of food, medicines, drinking water and other basic necessities in this area as severe blockade was imposed upon by the state on them for past many months, an IDP representative said.

India should stop war, instruct Colombo to talk to Tigers - BJP Tamil Nad

India should stop war, instruct Colombo to talk to Tigers - BJP Tamil Nadu

[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 January 2009, 12:37 GMT]
A senior leader of BJP, a major national political party of India, visited Friday Thol. Thirumavalavan, the VCK President who is on a fast-unto-death demanding the Central government of India to stop the war being waged by Colombo against Eezham Tamils. The BJP politician, Vaithiyalingam, a member of the party's national general council, declared that India, which is a powerful country in the region, cannot sit back and watch without doing anything to stop the genocidal war in Sri Lanka and added India should be specific in demanding ceasefire between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam.

Another BJP politician Kasi Muthu Manickam also addressed the gathering.

A neo-Buddihst monk from the Dalit community addressed the gathering. He condemned Sri Lanka and said it was a shame to call Sri Lanka a Buddhist country. Religious representatives from the local Muslim Jamaat also visited Thirumavalavan and donated money to the campaign.

Thirumavalavan's fast has entered 3rd day and his doctors were concerned of blood pressure and sugar levels, sources in Chennai said Saturday.

The fasting VCK leader thanked the BJP politicians for visiting him and expressing solidarity to his campaign said that the BJP politicians' solidarity, despite the ideological difference between Hindutva BJP and the secular and Dalit VCK, showed the genuineness of the cause he was representing.

The BJP in Tamil Nadu has recently staged protests in support of Eezham Tamils.

The BJP, in alliance with several other parties, was in power from 1998 to 2004 with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the Prime Minister. The February 2002 Ceasefire Agreement was mooted, shadow-managed and supervised by Vajpayee's Advisor Brajesh Mishra, reports revealed in Indian media last year.

The CFA signed in February 2002 was unilaterally withdrawn by the Sri Lanka government in January 2008.