Situation update 30 September 1996
After a week of heavy fighting, the Sri Lankan Defence ministry
announced that troops had captured the northern town of
Kilinochchi on Sunday 29 September, describing it as the last
bastion of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE).
The Tigers have refused to confirm the fall saying Sri Lankan
forces were still east of the town but BBC reports say the LTTE
withdrew from Kilinochchi on Friday after blowing up the
telecommunications tower as troops threatened to encircle the
town from the south.
Defence sources say over 450 Tiger guerrillas died in a savage
counter attack on Thursday as Tiger radio appealed for
reinforcements for a last-ditch battle to save the town. A week
of fighting has left 750 guerrillas and 255 soldiers dead, the
Defence Ministry says. The Tigers claim bodies handed over to the
ICRC by the military are civilians killed in Sri Lankan air
strikes.
Government restrictions on correspondents in the war zone and
press censorship means there is no independent confirmation of
the reports.
The loss is a psychological blow to the LTTE and attention will
now focus on the strategic crossroads town of Mankulam 45 kms
south, where many of the 200,000 refugees from the fighting have
sought shelter.
The military's objective may be to take the 70 kms of shattered
road between Kilinochchi and frontline Vavuniya, symbolically
reuniting the island and securing a vital supply line to Jaffna,
where Sri Lankan troops are increasingly bogged down by guerrilla
attacks and a civilian population cowed by food shortages and
reprisals from both sides.
Mankulam, with one of three cottage hospitals in hundreds of
miles of jungle and isolated farms is flooded with refugees with
no proper food shelter or sanitation. Vital drugs, antibiotics
and chlorine are in short supply. Thousands of people are fleeing
Akkarayankulam, another refugee concentration, a few miles south-
west of Kilinochchi.
The Tigers real strongholds east of the main road in the Vanni
jungle remain a palpable threat and the LTTE will seek a quick
strategic reply to Kilinochchi with an attack on the capital by
its suicide commandos or on the eastern seaboard town of
Batticaloa, increasingly embattled as Tiger control swells west
of the lagoon.
Rather than let over 200,000 frightened civilians be pushed south
into government-held territory in Vavuniya where extensive
refugee preparations have been underway for weeks, the Tigers may
seek to engineer a new refugee exodus to south India, a few miles
across the Palk Strait. Over 2,500 Tamils have arrived in south
India in the last three weeks.
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