Concern about forced labour in Batticaloa continues. MP Joseph Pararajasingham says in a letter to President Chandrika that the STF at Kurumanveli is regularly forcing local people between the ages of 12 and 40 to work at gunpoint .
An Army officer was killed and four soldiers injured in a LTTE grenade attack on 16 April at Santhiveli in Valaichenai. The Army carried out a house-to-house search three days later in the area and arrested a trader suspected of providing food to the Tigers. Seven policemen were killed in a Tiger ambush at Kalmunai, south of Batticaloa on 21 April. Following the attack the military shelled the area damaging two houses.
In late April the Army ordered that dry rations to the displaced people in LTTE-controlled Vaharai area should continue to be issued at the Hussain Army camp despite complaints that the refugees had to walk 25 miles. In early May, however, five lorryloads of food accompanied by the ICRC was allowed into Vaharai.