SOMALINET NEWS ...Archives
SRI LANKA: MORE DEATHS IN FIGHTING December 7, 2006
Zainab Osman
(SomaliNet) At least 11 people are reported to have been have been killed in the latest violence in Sri Lanka. The army also says 10 students and a teacher were injured in a Tamil Tiger artillery attack on a school in the north-eastern district of Trincomalee. It says that afterwards a shell fell in the same area, killing three civilians. Earlier, six people died in two mine blasts in the north.
The rebels say two Tamil civilians have been shot dead in Trincomalee by unidentified gunmen. In Thursday's school incident, the military says that the Tamil Tigers started firing towards government positions, but said two of those shells hit a school injuring several children.
Half an hour later they say the Tigers resumed the attack and hit a home in Kalar village, the military spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said a 10-year-old boy was among the dead.
On Wednesday, the Sri Lankan government invoked tougher laws against what they called terrorist activities. The new legislation gives the security forces wider freedom to arrest and detain suspects.
The rebels have been fighting for independence for the 2.5m-strong minority Tamil community in the north and east of Sri Lanka. At least 3,400 people have been killed in the conflict in the past year, the government says. More than 60,000 lives have been lost since 1972.