 To all people with Humanitarian/Human Rights concerns
about Northeast of Sri Lanka:
Over the last six to seven weeks atrocities by the Sri Lankan armed
forces and
paramilitaries against civilians in Northeast have escalated to
alarming levels. Due to
staff shortage and reasons of security of the NESOHR field officers,
we have not been
able to visit the affected families and obtain their complaints
directly from them.
Our field staff in Jaffna, however, has visited the family of a
woman who was raped and
killed on 16 December 2005. We have issued a report on this. As you
may already
know, our senior founding member
Mr Joseph Pararajasingam was
murdered in
Batticaloa on 25 December 2005 by paramilitaries inside a church.
Witnesses have said
that large number of Sri Lankan military was stationed outside of
the church until the
shooting occurred.
There are other violations, which include
attacks on peaceful
protest on the university
community in Jaffna during the month of December 2005, the burning
of four members
of a family in Pesalai in Mannar on 23 December 2005, and the
shooting and killing of
five high school students in Trincomalee on 2 January 2006, that we
have confirmed
through our field staff.
We have collated some of the human rights violations as reported in
the local media.
According to these statistics Sri Lankan armed forces so far have
been responsible for at
least 45 deaths and more than 100 disappearances and innumerable
shooting/beating and
injuring of civilians who were going about their daily lives. A
table of what we have
collated is included below.
It is alarming that this is happening in the presence of the Sri
Lanka Monitoring Mission
and other international NGO staff. It is also disheartening and
tragic that the
international community has not realized that the Sri Lankan armed
forces must be
withdrawn from the residential areas in Northeast in order to secure
lasting human rights
for the people of Northeast.
We appeal to you to take all possible actions to bring an end to the
atrocities of the Sri
Lankan armed forces in Northeast.
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