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Sri Lanka Govt Forces Confirm More Killings of Tiger Rebels
The Sri Lankan military has confirmed that additional 18 separatist Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in fighting in northern Jaffna peninsula on Saturday afternoon, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, December 24.
It said that among those killed in the fighting about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday there were 14 female child soldiers. Seven rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were captured alive, of whom one was wounded and admitted to hospital for treatment, it added.
The ministry said that government forces handed over 30 bodies of Tiger rebels to the Jaffna hospital to be handed over to the LTTE through International Committee of Red Cross.
In a heavy fighting on Friday in the same region, the LTTE had admitted losing 124 of their combatants, the ministry said quoting intercepts of Tiger rebel radio transmissions.
A total of 51 rebel bodies have been recovered but only 30 of them were in proper condition to be handed over. Of the bodies recovered, 17 were teenagers, the statement said.
The government forces also lost 25 soldiers including an officer and 47 others were wounded in Friday's fighting.
The fierce fightings came after the Tiger rebels offered a unilateral one-month ceasefire on Thursday. In a response to Tiger rebels' truce offer the government said on Saturday that military operations would continue until peace negotiations between the two sides proceed to mutual satisfaction.
The LTTE rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate Tamil state in the north and east of the country. In the past they have entered peace negotiations with the government several times but they violated agreements with the government and resumed fighting soon after.
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