Government officers and teachers have been ordered to obtain permission from the military before entering these areas. Officers and teachers, who are expected to visit the areas daily, say this is impractical and will adversely affect their work. A team of Education Department officers who went for inspection of schools on 15 March were turned back at the Karuthapalam bridge in Chenkalady. Ninety of the 320 schools in the district are in LTTE areas. A hundred youths who had been selected for leadership training by the National Youth Services Council were also turned back on 20 March at Valayiravu bridge further south and Karuthapalam. Press reports say the ICRC which escorts food lorries and runs mobile clinics in Tiger areas was also denied permission on 20 March.
Restrictions on food, fuel, medicines, fertiliser and other essential needs, already in force, have affected the daily life of the people, small industries and agriculture. Medical facilities are minimal and reports say that in the last two months, ten people died of rabies in northern Batticaloa.
According to Colombo newspapers, a World Bank team visiting Batticaloa District was dissatisfied with the progress in the North-East Irrigated Agriculture Project (NIAP) funded by the Bank to help affected communities to re-establish a subsistence level of production and basic services. Rs 3 billion ($32.4 million) was allocated for the programme.
In late March, the military announced an offensive in Batticaloa and asked people to vacate a four-kilometre area around LTTE camps. The security forces say that several senior LTTE cadre, including deputy leader Karikalan and Karuna have arrived in Batticaloa from the north to launch a major operation.
The police arrested S Sivakumaran at Valaichenai on 12 March after he was accused of LTTE links by a Tamil group allied to the Army. He had recently been released after three years in Kalutara prison. Three days later, the police shot dead S Mathikumar of Mandur alleging that he failed to stop at a checkpoint. The Army killed civilian P Nallarajah, 49, on 22 March in Valaichenai.
In Trincomalee District, the security forces ordered 4,000 people in Uvarmalai to assemble at Vivekananda College for interrogation on 25 March and took some into custody. Three days earlier, the Army launched an operation west of Muthur in Ralkuli and Navalady. Three fishermen were taken into custody. The LTTE has withdrawn from the area. Local people say rice farming in 50 acres of land has come to a standstill.