DEATH TOLL RISES TO NINE IN THE SUICIDE TRACTOR BLAST TARGETTING CHENKALADI ARMY CAMP

By Walter Jayawardhana

The death toll in the tractor blast targeting the main Sri Lanka Army camp in Chenkaladi, close to the EasterN town of Batticaloa has now risen up to Nine.

The casualties of the suspected LTTE attack was somewhat lessened because army sentries were able to shoot the suicide bomber before it crashed into the camp , army sources revealed.

When the army troops shot the driver of the high explosives laden tractor and trailer it set off an explosion killing the suspected LTTE suicide bomber , three soldiers and five civilians and wounded thirteen others the same sources said.

Army spokesman Brigadier Prasad Samarasinghe said, “ We estimate there were more than 200 kilograms of high explosives laden in the tractor and trailer.”

He said one could not even find out a piece of the trailer since it was blown up into smithereens and if it had entered into the camp it would have caused a major disaster, more serious.

The attack on Chenkaladi camp came one day after the aerial attack on the Sri Lanka Air Force at Katunayaka about 30 miles North of Colombo.

The Army base at Chenkaladi is the main base operating against the separatist insurgents in the Eastern Province where the LTTE is pushed out of many places in the province.

Several vehicles were engaged in evacuating the injured from the suicide tractor attack scene to the Teaching Hospital of Batticaloa.

Army sources said the suicide attack occurred march 27 at 6.45 a.m.
The same sources said that simultaneously the LTTE were directing artillery attacks from Mavidavembu , about eight kilometers North from the center of attack. The army while evacuating the injured was engaged in retaliatory fire.