Sri Lanka: Airforce bombs civilian settlement

September 13, 2008
Issue 

The below article is abridged from http://www.tamileelamnews.com.

Concentrated aerial attacks conducted by the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) have targeted the densely populated town of Killinochchi in the island's predominantly Tamil Northern Province where UN agencies and other NGOs have their offices — and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people live.

The SLAF's Kfir bombers attacked Killinochchi on September 10, wounding a 90-year-old man and a 11-year-old boy and damaging causing 23 houses. A 23-year-old pregnant mother was operated on due to fetal death caused by the bombing and a one-year-old was admitted to hospital, medical sources said.

The Sri Lankan bombers fired 16 bombs and deployed lethal air bursts, causing widespread destruction. The office of NGO Seva Lanka and an Oxfam store are located 100 metres from the attack site.

Hundreds of civilians in the northern Wanni area have been killed with hundreds more wounded during daily air raids conducted by the SLAF over the year alone.

The Sri Lankan government is pressing for a military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have been fighting for a Tamil homeland.

Sri Lanka has been pronounced by media rights groups as the most dangerous place in the world for journalists and aid workers.

The three-decades-old civil war in Sri Lanka has killed at least 215,000 people according to the surveys done by the UN World Health Organisation. With escalating fighting between the Sri Lankan Army and LTTE in the north and east of the island, at least half a million people have become internally displaced and more than one million people externally displaced.

At least 5800 people have been killed in last two years alone.

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