International truce monitors said this week Sri Lankan troops entered a school and opened fire on a group of students at close range on Nov. 18, killing five of them, after a deadly Tamil Tiger ambush nearby on government forces.
The students were shot dead in an Agriculture school in Vavuniya shortly after a Tamil Tiger blast killed five soldiers in the area.
"These soldiers fired indiscriminately at a group of students who had thrown themselves on the ground seeking safety after an LTTE (Tamil Tiger) claymore mine blast nearby," Helen Olafsdottir, spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission that oversees the 2002 ceasefire, told Reuters.
"Witnesses say that soldiers jumped over the fence, into the agricultural school premises, and opened fire," she added.
"They shot from close range, five of the students were killed and at least 10 others were injured."
A Sri Lankan military spokesman said ground troops claimed the civilians were killed in crossfire after the blast which killed five soldiers and that police were investigating.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a coalition of Sri Lanka’s main Tamil parties, condemned the massacre, pointing that 99% of Sri Lankan troops are Sinhalese and hostile to the Tamil population.
“This is yet another crime in a very long list of such crimes that have deliberately and systematically targeted innocent Tamil civilians. These are war crimes of the most serious nature,” the TNA said in a press release.
Vavuniya Magistrate S Illancheliyan who visited the scene has ordered the Army to surrender the weapons used by the soldiers involved for inspection by the government analyst.
The TNA press release described the massacre in detail:
“On 18 November 2006, at about 10.30 am, the Army personnel had approached the premises of the Agriculture Farm School in Thandikulam, Vavuniya from several fronts firing in the air with live ammunition.
“Several students dressed in uniform were engaged in practicals at the time. On hearing the firing the students had taken cover by lying flat on the ground.
“On entering the school premises, members of the Army had ordered the students to stand up.
“At this point, one student Ramachandran Atchuthan, had stood up and explained that all those present were students of the said school and had no connection whatsoever to an earlier claymore mine attack that had been carried out on a Sri Lanka Army vehicle.
“At this stage the Army personnel shot Atchuthan in the head at point blank range.
“Subsequently three other students, Gopinath of Trincomalee, Rizwan Mohammed of Batticaloa and Sinthujan of Vavuniya were also shot in execution style killings.
“The Army personnel then proceeded to open fire randomly at the remaining students, grievously wounding ten students of whom six were girls.”
