13.08.2006

Allaipiddy is one of the islets off the Yaalppanam coast. The SL military fired indiscriminately towards the PhilipNeri church from  Palaly military base where people had taken refuge. The total death toll which many say was very high remains unrecorded to this date. The Parish Priest of the PhilipNeri church, Fr Jim Brown, who witnessed the entire shelling incident, was later disappeared by the Sri Lanka military.

37 wounded civilians were rushed to Yalppanam hospital from other areas, Allaipiddy, Mankumban and Mandaithivu. Meanwhile, SLA soldiers resumed firing rockets from a Multi Barrel Rocket Launcher (MBRL) from Duraiappa stadium in Yalppanam town.

One young girl who wishes to remain anonymous later wrote about her experience caught up in this shelling. Her writing is important because there are no other recording of the events of that night. According to her, they felt trapped as the shelling exploded all around them. They sought safety in the PhilipNeri church. Then the SLA persons came to the church and promised to escort the people to Yalppanam.

What the SLA did was to use the people as shields and then once they neared their own camp abandoned the people who had to dodge shells and find their way back to the church. The SLA repeated this a few times before people realized what they were actually doing. A few hours later shells came directly at the church. There was fire from the naval gunboats as well. Many people were by now dead. Children lost parents. After the carnage when Fr Jim Brown tried to recover the bodies but the Navy obstructed it.

Available names of victims (name, age) 1. A John Robert, 41 2. K Mary Manjula, 45 3. K Menis, 19 4. K Michael, 55 5. K Nadaraja, 60 6. K Thevakumar, 28 7. K Uthayakumar, 35 8. L Gnanapragasam, 70 9. M Ramesh, 26 10. P Thevanayaki, 30 11. P Velicia, 20 12. S Anandam, 51

13.08.2007

On 13.08.2007, Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombed in Maruthoadai, Nedungkea’ni Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (LTTE) controlled territory in Vavuniyaa, killing a 20-year-old female. Ariyaratnam Subajini, 20, from Paandiyan Ku’lam, Karumppu’l’liyaan, Mallavi, was wounded when the six passengers of the bus, the driver and the conductor were seeking safety from the air attack. Subajini later succumbed to her wounds. The wounded husband and wife were identified as Chinnakkuddi Thiyaakaraasa, 63, and S. Kanakamma, 54.

The Maruthoadai school, destroyed in the attack, is situated along Nedungkea’ni – Othiyamalai Road, 6 km from Nedungkea’ni junction.A government school, Maruthoadai Tamil Mixed School, was destroyed in the bombardment. A Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society building, a rice mill and two civilian houses were also damaged in the bombardment that took place twice between 6:40 and 7:10 a.m. A couple, owners of one of the houses, were seriously wounded in the air-attack.

Sri Lanka Army operated gunmen in Thenmaraadchi, Yaalppanam, have shot and killed Five Eelamtamils in 24 hours

Retired Grama Sevaka officer, K Chelliah, 65, was gun down at this house in Kaithadi at 11:00 a.m.
In the second incident in Kaithadi East, Jeyathaas Ruban, a father of two, was shot dead by four Sri Lanka Army (SLA) intelligence operatives in civil clothes riding in motorcycles. In Vara’ni in Thenmaraadchi another Eelamtamil was shot dead. Details of this killing is not available.

On 12.08.2007, armed men who arrived at the house of Thambyaiyah Chandramohan, 30, in Kaithadi south, gunned him.

Meanwhile, in Yaalpanam, gunmen shot and seriously injured an employee of Yaalpanam Municipal Council (JMC), K. Thevarasa, 28, in front of Yalppanam St. Patric’s College. Two armed men on motor cycle who waylaid Thevarasa, shot and seriously injured him while he was cycling to his work.
Thevaras’s body is also being kept at Yalppanam hospital mortuary.

(Source : Tamilnet)