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Poonahari in the north and Vaharai shelled all night

Continuous artillery shelling by the Sri Lankan military towards Poonahari starting from 6.00pm on Monday severely damaged the Poonahari hospital. The hospital had already sustained minor damages in August due to artillery.

The hospital was rebuilt under the NECORD scheme with funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) after the signing of the CFA.

Prior to the destruction of the Poonahari hospital, Sri Lankan artillery fire has already destroyed or damaged eight hospitals in the Northeast during this CFA period. These hospitals are Palai hospital in Kilinochchi, Maruthankerni hospital in the unoccupied area of Jaffna, Puliyankulam hospital and Iranai Iluppai hospital in the unoccupied areas of Vavuniya, Eachilampattu hospital and Sampoor central hospital in the unoccupied areas of Trincomalee. The Kilinochchi District hospital also sustained structural damage on 2 November following aerial bombing. In addition to destruction of hospitals, there have been four attacks on hospital ambulance services, three in the Vanni district by deep penetration units of the Sri Lankan military and another one in Trincomalee while the ambulance was carrying victims injured in shelling to hospital.

Vaharai shelling on Monday night (20 Nov 2006)

On Monday 20 November, government announced that it is sending 14 trucks of food to the Vaharai people who have not been sent any food for four weeks. On Monday a total of 15 Metric Tons (MT) of flour and rice were send to Vaharai. The standard estimate of food requirement for 35,000 people is 35 MT per week. The government promised further supplies to be sent today.

However, on Monday night starting from 6.00 pm onwards Sri Lankan military started shelling Vaharai area from Valaichenai camp and Karadikulam camp in south. Shells fell inside Vaharai hospital and near Vaharai church where there is dense IDPs presence in temporary shelters.

Two LTTE members were injured in the shelling north of Kirumichchai.

ICRC vehicle that went from Batticaloa to check on Vaharai on Tuesday morning in readiness for the food convoy to be taken were sent back at the Mankerni checkpoint at 9.00am on Tuesday.

All indications are that with incessant shelling the promised food convoys will not be taken to Vaharai even today.

Yesterday’s drama of taking a token amount was only a deceptive action to divert the attention of the Co-chairs members gathered for the meeting in Washington.

21 November 2006

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