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French NGO probing killing of 15 aid workers in Sri Lanka
Colombo, Aug 7, 2006 A French aid agency said it was trying to find out who shot dead 15 of its employees in northern Sri Lanka but that government troops had sealed off the scene of the massacre. The bodies of 11 men and four women all wearing Action Against Hunger (ACF) T-shirts were found face-down in their office on Sunday in the town of Muttur, close to heavy fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels. The rebels have accused the security forces of killing the aid workers, who were all members of Sri Lanka's minority ethnic Tamil community. Benoit Miribel, the director general of Action Against Hunger (ACF), said his organisation was stunned by the killings which were unprecedented in the organisation's 25-year history. "We are trying to send a team to find out what is going on in this area," Miribel told AFP in Paris. "But soldiers have prevented us from entering the town which remains completely sealed off." He said the organisation urgently wanted "to go to our offices there to retrieve the bodies and carry out an investigation to find out who was responsbile." Miribel said ACF, which has nearly 250 staff in Sri Lanka working on tsunami relief programs, had no plans to leave the troubled northeast. Heavy fighting broke out in Muttur and the surrounding northeastern district of Trincomalee last month after the government accused the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of blocking a key waterway. The fighting prevented aid agencies from accessing the Muttur area. ACF is one of the hundreds of aid agencies that set up operations in Sri Lanka after an Indian Ocean tsunami wiped out much of the island's coastal infrastructure and killed an estimated 31,000 people in December 2004. There was no immediate word from the government about what happened to the aid workers in Muttur after fighting intensified there last Wednesday. However, the military said it had established full control over the Muslim-majority town over the weekend. Reporters and photographers who tried to enter Muttur Sunday were turned away by security forces. Troops said the guerrillas had shelled the town on Sunday morning. The fighting erupted on July 26 when war planes bombed suspected Tiger positions in a bid to force the rebels to lift their blockade of an irrigation canal that was denying water to some 15,000 farming families downstream. Heavy fighting since has claimed the lives of at least 425 people. The military has also accused the Tiger rebels of killing 100 Muslim residents, a charge denied by the guerrillas. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters When the Earth Quakes A world of storm and tempest
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