Sri Lanka villagers in shock, panic after church attack, shooting kills 5

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This article was published 18/06/2006 (7357 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PESALAI, Sri Lanka (AP) – Tamil villagers, terrified by an approaching Sri Lankan government patrol, sought shelter Sunday in the same church where they say soldiers fired on them a day before, and elsewhere at least three police died in a blast blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels.

The government denied killing civilians, blaming the Tigers for the attack. But many witnesses and an international aid worker said Sri Lankan forces were responsible, as the island country appeared to edge even closer toward all-out civil war.

When word spread Sunday morning that a military patrol was coming, people in the tiny, remote northwestern fishing village of Pesalai panicked. Men, women and children ran from their homes to Our Lady of Victory Roman Catholic Church.

The patrol, however, stayed on the road and did not approach the church or homes. The navy said the troops were there to guard against rebel infiltration.

“We all know that (the Tamil rebels) often infiltrate among civilians, especially fishermen, and we had to be there to safeguard against that,” said Cmdr. D.K.P. Dassanayake, a navy spokesman.

Churches are often used as refuges in parts of Sri Lanka where clashes are frequent between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels, who are seeking to create an independent homeland for the country’s minority ethnic Tamils.

Survivors and witnesses of Saturday’s attack say Sri Lankan forces stormed the church where hundreds of Tamils were sheltering, indiscriminately shooting inside, and then fired wildly through the village. Five villagers were killed.

“All the people now are only in a mood to flee at the sight of uniforms,” said a fishermen who identified himself as Raja, the only person in the village willing to give a name. Others remained anonymous, fearing military reprisals.

At the village shoreline, nearly 40 fishing boats were burned and reduced to ashes in attacks fishermen blamed on rampaging navy sailors. One boat contained a dead man’s burned remains.

The government on Sunday again denied involvement in the church attack on the church.

A statement issued by the defence ministry called the report “yet another attempt by pro (Tiger) media to discredit the government and tarnish the image of the Security Forces.”

The past few days have seen the worst violence since an often-violated ceasefire was signed in 2002 by the government and the Tigers, who already control much of Sri Lanka’s north and east.

Separately Sunday, a powerful mine blast left at least three policemen dead in northern Sri Lanka, police said.

A sergeant and two constables died when a mine exploded near their vehicle in Vavuniya district, said deputy inspector general of police, Gamini Silva.

Silva blamed the attack on the Tigers, who are known for using remote-controlled mines.

The rebels, formally called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have been fighting for more than two decades to create a homeland for the country’s 3.2 million predominantly Hindu Tamils, a minority that some say has faced decades of discrimination by the largely Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

The civil war killed more than 65,000 people before the ceasefire, and as talks to build on the truce faltered, sporadic shootings and bombings in and around Tiger strongholds have escalated into near-daily violence.

Raja said he believed the Tamil Tigers provoked the slaying in Pesalai by attacking a navy base hours earlier, just one attack in a series of tit-for-tat strikes.

The Tamil Tigers “should think more before launching such attacks, because such attacks get us in trouble,” he said.

Dassanayake, the navy spokesman, said the militants stormed the village in 12 boats, first firing grenade launchers at the police station, which is near the navy base and church.

The attack on the navy base triggered a naval and helicopter battle that in turn prompted the villagers to seek refuge in the church.

The two sides gave wildly different outcomes of that attack, with the army saying three sailors were dead and eight missing, but up to 30 Tigers killed. The Tigers said only two of their forces suffered minor injuries, but 12 Sri Lankan sailors died.

The rebel attack in Pesalai came after Sri Lanka’s military unleashed retaliatory strikes on rebel positions for a bus bombing last week that killed 64 people.

The government blamed the Tigers for the bombing, the worst act of violence since the ceasefire. The rebels denied involvement.