Lanka shuts schools after Tigers warn of more attacks

COLOMBO: School holidays began early in Sri Lanka on Tuesday as a security precaution, a day after the first attack on a diplomat since a two-decade civil war began and a suspected Tamil Tiger front threatened to attack civilians.   

Fighting continued to rage in the far north, as troops and rebels fired artillery at each other across a no-man’s land, the military said, as it searched for rebel infiltrators amid fears the worst fighting since a 2002 ceasefire could escalate.  

“Earlier we didn’t have threats like this. I don’t think they’d target us, but the safety of the children has to come first,” said Sylvester Ranasinghe, Rector of St. Joseph’s College in Colombo.

The government said a Claymore mine attack on a Pakistan High Commission convoy that killed 7 people and injured 17 on Monday was a rebel suicide attack.

But witnesses said they saw no evidence of the remains of a suicide bomber at the site. Pakistan is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest arms suppliers. The attack on the convoy came after Air Force jets bombed Tiger territory. The rebels said the raid killed 61 schoolgirls. Nordic truce monitors said they only saw the bodies of 19 young men and women aged around 17-20, and while it did not appear to be a rebel camp, they had not ruled out the possibility they were receiving civilian defence training.

UNICEF said they did not have access to the dead. The goverment on Tuesday showed journalists what appeared to be satellite footage of what it said were Tigers fleeing a training camp shortly after Kfir jets bombed it on Monday, and said their age was of no concern.    “Even it is a 17-year-old child in terms of age, they are soldiers who are prepared to kill whoever comes in front of them. Therefore the age or the gender is not what is important,” Defence Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. Thousands of residents were still holed up in churches and homes as troops tried to smoke out rebels who have landed on an islet to the west of Jaffna town.

Residents stockpiled food as an indefinite curfew was briefly lifted. Most phone lines were down.

“Life is difficult, but at least we have shelter,” said 40-year old plumber Patrick Selvam, who is sheltering with his wife and three children at a Catholic school in Jaffna.

However he sneaks home each night to guard their belongings. “I am worried about robberies,” he said.

Aid workers estimate around 100,000 people are newly displaced in Sri Lanka''s north and east after the worst fighting since a 2002 truce first erupted in the east three weeks ago.

In Colombo, residents fear more attacks after two blasts in a week and the chilling threat from a suspected Tiger front group to bomb civilians in the majority Sinhalese south.

The Colombo stock market fell 2.4 per cent on Monday as investors worried attacks could hurt industries like tourism and dent growth prospects for the $23 billion economy, but recovered some ground on Tuesday.