“It’s truly horrible they are a very close family. Ravindran, the father of the little girl, is devastated. He has lost half his family.”

Violence continued across the NorthEast over the past fortnight, claiming the lives of civilians, Sri Lanka Army (SLA) soldiers and LTTE fighters. The violence also spread to the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, claiming Tamil lives. The SLA’s Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) has also been active in LTTE controlled territory, with civilians dying in claymore blasts. Tamil refugees have begun arriving in increasing numbers in India.

India last week politely but firmly made it clear to Sri Lanka that its security forces must stop killing innocent Tamils in the name of combating the Tamil Tigers.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera was conveyed the message by India’s political leadership which while being firmly committed to the island’s unity is bothered by increasing reports of attacks on innocent Tamils.

The Eelam National Democratic Liberation Front (ENDLF), an India-based paramilitary group now operating in an anti-LTTE grouping under the Karuna Group, is seeking recruits from refugee camps and orphanages in southern India, tehelka.com reported, citing local press reports.

The Bishop of Mannar protests to the Vatican over the destruction wreaked by Sri Lanka Navy personnel on Pesalai village and Church.

Sixty-eight people died on Thursday last week after a landmine, allegedly planted by the Liberation Tigers, ripped through a Ceylon Transport Board bus packed with passengers at Kongollewa, in Kebithigollewa.

The Sri Lankan government retaliated by launching air strikes on locations in the East and around Kilinochchi. The Liberation Tigers denied any involvement in the attack, calling it “senseless violence used for political ends”.

Whilst high profile incidents of violence, including a deadly mine blast which hit a bus packed with Sinhalese passengers, the ensuing airstrikes against Tamil areas and the attack on Tamil refugees in a church dominated the headlines, dozens of civilians, Sri Lankan security forces personnel and LTTE cadres have been killed in continuing violence across the Northeast.

As Sri Lanka’s Army steps up raids into Tamil Tiger controlled territory, clashes between its Deep Penetration Unit (DPU) and LTTE forces are becoming more commonplace.

The LTTE captured a Sri Lankan Army soldier attached to the Deep Penetration Unit (DPU), formally knows as Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) unit near Batticaloa Lagoon Friday last week.

“UNICEF in Sri Lanka is calling for immediate action to halt the abduction and forced recruitment of children by the Karuna group.”

The attack on Maj. Gen. Kulatunga, number 3 in the SLA hierarchy, comes two months after a suicide bomber badly wounded Army commander Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka and killed eleven of his bodyguards.

Theacknowledgment of a Tamil right to self-rule in their own homeland marks a welcome evolution in US policy.

'The Tamils have already made the biggest concession of all by making a form of self-rule, rather than independence, their aim.”

Playing political football with child soldiers.

At some point in during the peace process, the international community assumed that it was no longer necessary to apply the concept of parity to resolving the Tamil question.