61 schoolgirls killed in Lankan airstrike

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Tamil Tiger guerrillas said yesterday that 61 schoolgirls at an orphanage and 15 civilians huddled in a church have been killed in air and artillery attacks by Sri Lanka’s military.
Air force jets hit a “Senchcholai”, an orphanage run by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), in the northeastern region of Mullaitivu, the Tigers said in a statement.

The government denied the attack and said the air force had only targeted an LTTE training facility in Mullaitivu.

The Tigers said the victims were students aged between 15 and 18 who were taking part in a two-day seminar on first aid.

“The number of children killed in the Sri Lankan air force bombing on students participating in a first aid seminar has increased to 61, with many fearing that the number killed is higher,” the LTTE said in a statement.

About 150 children were seriously wounded, it said, adding that the victims were being taken to hospitals in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu, both in rebel-held territory in the north.

The LTTE’s website showed pictures of some of the children killed in the attack.

“It is a lie to say that schoolchildren were targeted,” government spokesman Chandrapala Liyanage said. “The air force had bombed a LTTE training centre. We don’t know if they had moved child soldiers there.”

Military officials confirmed that the air force was keeping up attacks in support of ground troops resisting a rebel advance on the Jaffna peninsula, further to the north of the island.

The Swedish-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said they received a complaint from the LTTE and monitors were on the way to the area to investigate.

“We have got a complaint from the LTTE that an orphanage has been bombed and that 50 children have been killed,” spokesman Thorfinnur Omarsson said. “Our monitors are on the way. We can’t comment any further.”

The United Nations agency for children, Unicef, said it was also told of the incident and had rushed officers from its base in Kilinochchi to investigate.

Ambulances were rushing the wounded, many of whom were bleeding heavily, to hospitals, the pro-rebel website Tamilnet reported.

The Tigers run orphanages to care for hundreds of war orphans in the rebel-held northeast.

It was not immediately clear if the bombed orphanage was the same one opened in January by the LTTE’s supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran.

According to the Tigers at the time, the Senchcholai comprised 11 residential blocks, an area for infants, an administration block, a skill development center, a cultural hall, a health center, a library, study halls and a children’s park.

The Senchcholais or Tiger orphanages were first established in 1991 in Sandilippay in Jaffna.

The latest attack came ahead of a powerful bomb attack in the capital Colombo that killed seven people, including four bodyguards of Pakistan High Commissioner (ambassador) Bashir Wali Mohamed, police said.

The top diplomat escaped but his car was damaged in the blast.

In the island’s north 15 people were killed and many more wounded when shells hit a church where residents had sought shelter, the rebels said.

The church on the islet of Kayts near Jaffna was hit on Sunday, Tamilnet said, charging that the shells were fired by the military from its Palaly base.

“At least 15 persons were killed and 20 severely wounded when rockets and artillery shells fired from Palaly military base hit St. Philip Mary Church in Allaipiddy, Sunday morning,” Tamilnet said.

It said 37 others wounded elsewhere had also been brought to the main hospital in Jaffna.

Officials and relief agencies expressed concern for the safety of civilians in the Jaffna peninsula, where troops and rebels have been locked in combat since Friday despite a truce in place since 2002.

Meanwhile, Tamil Tigers killed seven people and injured 17 in an attack on a Pakistan embassy convoy yesterday, the military said, just hours after a suspected rebel front threatened to start bombing civilians in the capital.

The blast, less than a mile from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s residence, came after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said Air Force jets bombed an orphanage in the northeast, killing 61 schoolgirls aged 15-18 and injured 60.

“Definitely it’s an LTTE attack to the Pakistan ambassador’s car but they missed and the backup vehicle got caught,” a military spokesman said.

Four military personnel and three civilians were killed in the blast, which bomb squad officials said was caused by a fragmentation mine inside a three wheeler taxi.

In Pakistan’s capital, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told Reuters: “He was unhurt…though his vehicle was damaged a bit.”

The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital.

Soon afterwards, the three-wheeled autorickshaw was still burning as heavily armed troops and police sealed off the area, only 100 metres (yards) from a busy shopping mall.

Peppered with what looked to be ball-bearings from the claymore mine, a Land Rover had slammed through a wall. A nearby car was burning while other civilian vehicles were damaged and smashed.

“Pakistan has been providing military hardware to Sri Lanka for some time,” said a defence analyst. “I wouldn’t rule out mistaken identity. This comes after this bombing in Mullattivu. It could be an opportunistic attack when they saw the military people in the car.”

Monday is also Pakistan’s independence day.

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