Sri Lankan government forces are recruiting child soldiers to fight against the Tamil Tigers, UN Envoy Allan Rock says in an interview with BBC.
The arrest of a Tamil youth, Poobalapillai Kantharajah, 26, from Batticaloa, on September 29, shed light on an abduction and extortion racket that has plagued the eastern city for some time. Investigations carried out following the arrest show that although several complaints had been made to the police with regard to suspicious activities taking place in highly residential areas in the city, no attention was paid to them and no action taken on the complaints made. In fact, in one instance, the police had told several residents who lodged a complaint on suspicious activities taking place in...
The Karuna Group has abducted hundreds of men and boys - some as young as 12 - and is training them for combat in camps operated with the government's consent.
'The rhetoric of the war on terror makes it easy to make glib judgments that one form of political violence is justified and another is not justified.'
One of the families in Jaffna peninsula gives a first hand account of what happens when armed men in white vans appear.
‘Security forces have again started killing civilians and quite indiscriminately’
Reporters have struggled with synonyms and cliches. “Tenuous”, “crumbling”, “collapsing,” “faltering,” “shaky” and “fragile” have been liberally used to describe the ceasefire.
"They had to take the threats seriously because some of their colleagues who ignored similar threats got killed later"
“Even in a war, there are certain (groups) that are not touched, such as the Red Cross symbol and NGOs.”
‘One of the most serious recent crimes against humanitarian aid workers worldwide’