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Two murdered in Sri Lanka amid Buddhist celebration

Two Tamil civilians have been shot dead in northern Sri Lanka as the country marked the holiest Buddhist anniversary with nationwide religious services, officials said on Wednesday.

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COLOMBO: Two Tamil civilians have been shot dead in northern Sri Lanka as the country marked the holiest Buddhist anniversary with nationwide religious services, officials said on Wednesday.   

Unidentified gunmen committed the murders on Tuesday night, the start of the Wesak festival marking the birth, enlightenment and passing of the Buddha more than 2500 years ago, police officials said.   

They said the bullet-riddled bodies were found in Vavuniya, a town in the north and close to the frontline with Tamil Tiger rebel-controlled territory, on Wednesday.   

The latest killings came a day after the defence ministry reported that 12 people had been killed in two separate incidents in the island's northeast on Monday.   

The violence followed an air attack by Tamil Tiger light aircraft in the capital Colombo.   

A fuel storage tank owned jointly by the government and the Indian Oil Company was destroyed while two buildings of Shell Gas Lanka, the local unit of the Anglo-Dutch giant, also suffered fire damage on Sunday, officials said.   

The Tigers carried out their first ever air strike last month and followed it with a second last week on the Palaly military complex in the north of the country.   

Police and security forces sealed off Colombo last Saturday, searching every vehicle entering and leaving the city amid fears of a rebel attack.   

The Tigers are believed to be operating five Czech-built Zlin-143 aircraft smuggled onto the island in pieces and re-assembled, government officials say.   

The rebels are fighting for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's minority Tamil community. The conflict has killed more than 60,000 people over some three decades.

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