SIX PEOPLE KILLED AND EIGHT OTHERS INJURED IN SUSPECTED LTTE SUICIDE TRACTOR ATTACK AGAINST ARMY CAMP

By Walter Jayawardhana

Six people including two soldiers were killed and eight others were seriously injured when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) crashed a high explosives laden tractor against a barrier leading to the Sri Lanka Army’s main base in the Eastern town of Chenkaladi near Batticaloa.
Four army personnel and two police personnel were injured and admitted to the hospital.

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.

Army sources said the tractor and the trailer were heavily packed with high explosives and killed the suspected suicide attacker.The suicide attack came six days after the Chenkaladi camp resisted a heavy artillery attack from the LTTE base.

The attack last week happened together with three other military camps in the coastal Batticaloa district leaving a total of four soldiers dead and 30 wounded, according to the military.