Sri Lanka’s Essential Services Commissioner has, by a 9 May circular letter to government officers, ordered the arbitrary reduction of the people receiving food aid from 420,000 to 185,000. According to the Vavuniya GA K Ganesh, although 1,525 lorryloads of food was needed for the Vanni for May and June only 640 lorryloads were received. Over 7,900 barrels of kerosene was required but only 2,700 were supplied. Thousands of refugees demonstrated in Madhu on 1 July demanding more food and medicine.
Hospitals in the Vanni struggle without sufficient medicines and shortage of staff. In April and May, Akkarayankulam hospital treated over 49,000 patients. Sixty one people died in the hospital during the two months. Medical Agency Medecins Sans Frontiers (Holland) says the hospital has not received medicines ordered from Colombo and children have been deprived of preventive injections for the last three months.
Another 17,000 patients were treated at the Mallavi hospital. An ambulance travelling with nine patients from Vavuniya to the hospital was held by the Army at a checkpoint on 17 June. The military says that medicines banned to the Vanni were hidden in the ambulance and the driver and his assistant were taken into custody.
Ten civilians were killed and 24 others injured in shelling when the LTTE attacked the Thandikulam Army base on 10 June. Over 6,700 people who fled to Vavuniya town are housed in four refugee camps. Nineteen civilians and four policemen were seriously wounded by a Tiger bomb in the heart of Vavuniya town on 16 June.
Further north-east, six LTTE boats travelling to Kokkilai from Trincomalee were sunk by naval patrol craft on 28 June killing 35 Tigers. The Navy says four of the boats were carrying medicines and medical equipment for wounded LTTE cadre in the Vanni.