Fresh fighting kills 30 in Sri Lanka, strike in Jaffna

Fresh fighting kills 30 in Sri Lanka, strike in Jaffna
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

COLOMBO, APRIL 12: Sri Lankan troops and Tamil Tiger rebels traded long-range attacks in northern Sri Lanka on Wednesday following heavy fighting a day earlier which left 30 dead, the Defence ministry said.

The fighting raged in the Jaffna peninsula as troops tried to clear an area between Muhamalai and Pallai recaptured from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Defence ministry said in a statement. It said 11 government soldiers were killed and another 59 were wounded in Tuesday's clashes along a strategic highway in the peninsula. The ministry said 19 rebels were killed in two confrontations.

Meanwhile, transport came to a standstill in Jaffna town which is not immediately affected by the on going fighting, officials and local residents said. They said university students had called a work stoppage on Wednesday to express solidarity with nearly 2,000 people trapped by the fighting elsewhere in the peninsula.

The Defence ministry said on Monday that security forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery wrested control of more than three kilometres (1.8 miles) of a strategic highway in Jaffna. However, local officials said that the highway was yet to be open to civilian traffic. There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE, which is leading a campaign for independence in the island's northeast.