This week marks the 30th anniversary of the Nagarkovil massacre, where the Sri Lankan air force bombed a school in Jaffna killing dozens of Tamil school children.

On September 22, 1995, a SLAF aircraft bombed the Nagarkovil Maha Vidyalayam schoolyard crammed with 750 children on their lunch break, killing more than 30 – of whom 12 were six or seven-year-olds – and injuring 150 others. The overall death toll from the raids reached 71. The bombing occurred just hours after the Sri Lankan government imposed press censor­ship on the reporting of military events.

The seventh day of Lt.Col. Thileepan's hunger strike was marked at his memorial in Nallur, Jaffna. 

Lt. Col. Thileepan refused food and water in a protest calling on the Indian government to honour its pledges to the Tamil people. 

Thileepan passed away 11 days later on the 26th September 1987. 

A bust of Lt. Col. Thileepan was unveiled in Nallur, Jaffna, this evening to honour his enduring legacy as the Tamil nation marks 38 years since his fast unto death. 

Thileepan, born Rasiah Partheepan, was a political wing leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who undertook a hunger strike urging the Indian government to fulfil its pledges to the Tamil people. 

Local residents restore Thileepan memorial 

Sri Lankan police removed a photograph of Lt. Col. Thileepan and flags from a memorial site in Trincomalee yesterday, following four days of commemorations by local residents. 

The sixth day of Lt. Col. Thileepan's hunger strike was commemorated this morning Nallur, Jaffna, with local residents gathering to remember his protest. 

The LTTE's political wing leader launched his hunger strike on 15th September 1987, to call on the Indian government to honour their pledges made under the Indo-Lanka accord.