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Sri Lanka

17 aid workers killed in Sri Lanka

14/08/2006: Seventeen local employees of a French charity have been found shot dead in the strife-torn town of Muttur in eastern Sri Lanka. Together with other humanitarian NGOs in Sri Lanka, DanChurchAid urgently request that an independent investigation of the murders is conducted as soon as possible.

© Reuters/Str/Sri Lanka

Relatives react after identifying the bodies of slain workers from the international aid agency Action Contre La Faim (ACF), at a hospital entrance in Trincomalee, August 8, 2006. Explosions sounded in Sri Lanka's east on Tuesday as fighting between military and Tamil Tigers over water supplies entered a 14th day, and aid workers planned the burials of 17 slain local staff.

Even though the aid workers were wearing t-shirts signalling that they were humanitarian aid workers, they were executed in their office in Muttur, in the North-Eastern part of Sri Lanka.

The humanitarian NGOs in Sri Lanka are rather sure that the killings happened because the aid workers were from a NGO.

Fighting between the LTTE and Sri Lankan government has increased during the last two weeks, and extremist groups regard humanitarian NGOs as biased in the conflict – and therefore they have increasingly become target for violent actions.

Uncertainty among DanChurchAid staff and local partners

Staff from DanChurchAid’s office in Colombo has clearly felt that the security situation has worsened during the last couple of weeks. Last week and again on Monday 14 August, bombs have been detonated close to the office in Colombo; more and more roads are blocked and military and police are seen all over Colombo.

”It creates fear and enormous uncertainty among our staff and partners, when the security for the humanitarian aid work no longer can be guaranteed. We also loose our natural opportunity to inform the international community about the inhuman conditions that the population in the conflict hidden districts is living under”, says Steffen Erik Mey Rasmussen, and he underlines that DanChurchAid severely condemns the murders on 17 ACF staff.

The circumstances around the murders of the 17 aid workers are very blurred, partly because humanitarian NGOs do not get access to the city of Muttur and the Trincomalee district, areas that suffer from heavy fighting between LTTE and the military.

Together with other humanitarian NGOs in Sri Lanka, DanChurchAid urgently request that an independent investigation of the murders is conducted as soon as possible.

Further information on DanChurchAid’s work in Sri Lanka, please contact:

  • Steffen Erik Mey Rasmussen, Country Representative, Sri Lanka
    Cell: + 45 29 69 91 17
    Email: ser@dca.dk
  • Kristian Lysholt, Programme Officer
    Cell: + 45 29 70 06 26
    Email: kly@dca.dk .