10.06.1986 – Mandaithivu sea massacre

Kurunagar, Pasaiyur and Mandaithivu are situated off the southern coast of the Jaffna peninsula. Surrounded on three sides by the sea and on one side by land, Mandaithivu village had 1200 families living in it. All the people in the village depended on fishing for their livelihood.

On 10.06.1986, Sri Lankan Navy men wearing black clothes approached the fishermen who were in the sea. The fishermen raised their hands to show that they are civilians. However, the Navy men attacked and tortured the fishermen before murdering them. The eyes of some of the fishermen were dug out. Stomachs of some fishermen were cut open. 32 fishermen from Kurunagar and one fisherman from Mandaithivu were killed in the incident. Boats and nets belonging to the fishermen were destroyed.

Available names: 

1. Kandaiya Muthusamy (55)
2. Christopher Snatchy (54)
3. Pangiras Tarsius (30)
4. Pangiras Anton Vimalathasan Thavam (23)
5. Pangiras Anton Julius (33)
6. Patrick Aloisius Donas (58)
7. Tamiyan Erumin Rupert Udayakumar (26)
8. Mudiyappu Anthonithas Rajkumar (32)
9. Manuel Pires (56)
10. Manuel Patrick (60)
11. Manuel Mariyanayakam (38)
12. Muthiah Swaminathan Sebamalai Joseph (57)
13. Anton Solron Wein (21)
14. Aloisius Deuce (24)
15. Aloisius Ligori (34)
16. Asirvatham Anthonypillai (68)
17. Arulanathan Benedikt (32)
18. Arulanantham Benedickt (60)
19. John George (56)
20. Joseph Fernando (62)
21. Benedikt Quberd Raison Rames (19)
22. Benedikt Masilla Mahendran (25)
23. Benedikt Aliston (30)
24. Benedikt Ligori (27)
25. Zebedäus Xavier (62)
26. Somasundaram Sothinathan (62)
27. Gnanapirakasam Edward Jayakanthan (17)
28. Subramaniam Gopalakrishnan (20)
29. Saviriyan Jesudasan Nixon (13)
30. Viswanathan Vimalanathan (23)
31. Emilianus Maximus Eswaran (21)

10.06.1998 – Suthanthirapuram massacre

On the day of the incident, Suthanthirapuram, which is along the coastline in the Mullaithivu district, came under SLAFs air attack and shelling attack from 9.15 am to 10.30 am. Because the attack was continuous, people were unable to find safe areas, 25 people were killed and more than 50 were injured. Several hundreds of thousands rupees worth properties were damaged. Hundreds of coconut trees on which people depended for livelihood and 10 houses were completely destroyed. Hundreds of houses were partially destroyed.

Ganashen Kasimalar’s account of the event is as follows:

“Around 9:30am whilst we were home, air bombing started. Our house was bombed too. We left our home and started running, but we did not know where to run to – everything was being bombed. We just ran in any direction. We got separated from our family in all the frenzy. I did not know where my mum, brother, sister…. anyone was. There was another plane flying in the air. We did not know what to do. We just kept going from one place to another in fear of our lives. We hid behind trees and buildings. We could not go back home – there was so much shelling.

Most of the people here were all displaced. We moved very closely with a lot of the people. Good friends, neighbours and relations were killed. This was definitely a planned attack on people who were already displaced and living in hardship.

We could not return home for 15 days. When we did come back, everything was destroyed. All the coconut trees, gardens and buildings were destroyed. Our house was not in a liveable state.”

Available names: 

1. Richart Seronconsenter (26) 
2. Vallipuram Ranimalar (27)
3. Vigneswaran Nesarani (40)
4. Vinayagamoorthy Thevakaran (22)
5. Sithamparapillai Kumaravel (48)
6. Sinnathurai Suthakaran (20)
7. Sinnathurai
8. Sanackuddy Yogapalasingha (27)
9. Chartseron Konsedda (26)
10. Vellaiyappan Subbaiah (57)
11. Selvarasa Sritharan (21)
12. Sebastiyampillai Jeyaratnam (21)
13. Ponnan Sureshkumar
14. Jeban
15. Atputham Jegan (23)
16. Atputham Jegan (23)
17. Aseervatham Parthima (17)
18. Amirthalingham Sutha
19. Muthuvel Gnanasegaram (59)
20. Muththuththamby Vasanthakumary (19)
21. Manuval Thevathas (45)
22. Palanivel Thiruchchelvy (18)
23. Puspanathan Rameskumar (13)
24. Puspanathan Saththiyaseelan (08)
25. Puspanathan Thevananthiny (02)

Sources:
1986: "Massacres of Tamil 1956 - 2008", NESOHR (2010), pp. 55 - 56.
1998: "Massacres of Tamils 1956 - 2008", NESOHR (2010), pp. 157 - 159.