130 refugees drown
The government blames the Tigers who it says are organising the refugee flight to draw India into the conflict.
OVER 130 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees fleeing to India died when an overcrowded trawler capsized at sea within a mile from Nachchikudah, 26 miles north of Mannar on 19 February. Reports say the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched a rescue operation and divers recovered the bodies of 94 people, many of them women and children displaced from Jaffna following military operations in December 1995. Twenty two people were saved. In October, 14 refugees died in a similar accident near Mannar Island.
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader M Sivasithamparam has blamed the Sri Lankan government and says in a hard-hitting letter to President Chandrika Kumaratunge that harrowing tales of semi-starvation, disease and death in Vavuniya welfare centres where northern civilians fleeing the war zone are detained, have caused refugees to seek other avenues of flight.
The government blames the Tigers who it says are organising the refugee flight to draw India into the conflict. Despite the tragedy, over 100 other refugees reached Tamil Nadu in late February. Observers say shelling and aerial bombing in military operations are the main causes for the refugee flight.
As Colombo celebrated the 49th year of independence from Britain on 4 February, the Sri Lankan Army launched Operation Edibala (Gallant Force) on the Mannar-Vavuniya road, the third major military operation in the region since January 1991. While troops advanced west from Poovarasankulam with artillery and air cover, another column moved north-west from Cheddikulam on the Medawachchiya-Mannar road. A third unit advanced on the Madhu-Periyathambanai road from Piramanalankulam.
Within three days the Army brought Parayanalankulam, 22 miles west of Vavuniya, under control and advanced further west to Madhu junction on 17 February. Four days later a jubilant military announced that troops had linked up with Mannar Island relieving a 700 sq mile territory controlled by the Tigers for the last 15 years and cutting off a vital supply route between the Vanni and the Wilpatu jungles where the LTTE is believed to have set up major bases. The government has announced that the Mannar-Vavuniya and Medawachchiya-Mannar roads will be opened for traffic. Earlier, access to Mannar Island from the south was by boat through Kalpitty.
Although Operation Edibala appears to be in response to LTTE attacks on Paranthan and Elephant Pass in January, observers believe that it followed Indian pressure as refugees continue to arrive in Tamil Nadu. Opposition parties say the government wanted to score a quick military victory before local elections on 21 March. They allege that the relatively sparsely populated Mannar area was chosen, because an operation northwards from Vavuniya would have been bloody and any political advantage gained neutralised by Army casualties.
The Army encountered only sporadic resistance in its long march to Mannar. But the Tigers attacked Vavuniya town on 7 February using long-range artillery captured in the Mullaitivu Army base assault in July 1996, killing two policemen. The military retaliated by shelling jungles and civilians in adjoining villages fled the areas.
Clashes in Nedunkerni in the Vanni in mid-February and the fear that a military operation north of Vavuniya was imminent, led to large-scale displacement of civilians. Vavuniya Government Agent (GA) K Ganesh says over 14,700 people were displaced and 1,200-1,500 rushed into Vavuniya daily. There are already over 10,000 people in Vavuniya welfare centres. Another 6,000 displaced by Operation Edibala and military order that no one can stay within a mile on both sides of the Mannar-Vavuniya road also entered Vavuniya in February.
A further 15,000 dislodged in Parayanalankulam, Kunchukulam and Kattaiadampan fled north seeking refuge in the Madhu area. Around 13,000 refugees have sought shelter in the camp near Madhu Church, the most-sacred Catholic shrine in Sri Lanka. The camp managed by international refugee agency UNHCR had already 6,000 refugees.
The massive displacement has created a logistical nightmare for government officers and relief agencies. Mannar GA SM Croos assisted by UNHCR rushed 40 lorryloads of food to Madhu. Medicines for 1997 have still not reached Mannar and an acute shortage of drugs is reported. The LTTE has accused the military of systematically destroying crops on 12,000 acres of fertile rice land around Giant’s Tank creating a further shortage.
Of the 15,200 people who left Vavuniya since December 1996 to go to the north, over 13,500 remain under appalling and crowded conditions in camps in the eastern town of Trincomalee awaiting transport. Among them are some 4,000 awaiting clearance from intelligence agencies to travel north. Ships carry 440 passengers to the north every four days, but 300 people arrive from Vavuniya daily.
Observers say that a new refugee crisis is brewing as military operations continue and the 450,000 Jaffna refugees in LTTE-controlled Vanni realise that they may have to live in marginal conditions away from home for many years. Parents will make every effort to send their children away from the island as the LTTE and the Army hunt for Tamil youth for different reasons. As the Colombo door closes, parents may increasingly look to the Indian transit route to the West.
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