FRANCE: Seventeen aid workers killed in Sri Lanka says Action Against Hunger Executive Director

The Executive Director of French aid group 'Action Contre la Faim' (ACF - also known as Action Against Hunger) confirmed that 17 local ACF employees were found dead in northern Sri Lanka on Monday (August 7, 2006). It was initially believed that 15 aid workers were killed, but while Reuters interviewed ACF's Executive Director Benoit Miribel, he found out that there were actually 17 dead. "Our team has just recovered 17 bodies at the ACF base at Mutur," he told Reuters, after he'd just found out over the phone that there were more dead than initially thought. The town of Mutur is in the northeast of the country, where battles have been raging between government forces and Tamil Tiger militias. The ACF team was there to help rebuild after the 2004 tsunami. Rumours circulated for several days that the staff were dead, but with the town practically cut off it was not confirmed until the first aid mission found them on Sunday (August 6) on the floor of their office wearing ACF T-shirts. Most were shot in the head. "They're being taken to Trincomalee where we will have an enquiry, an autopsy, to find out how they were killed," Miribel told Reuters. "It would seem that it was rocket explosions or bullets to the head. We don't know. There are several versions. Perhaps some were killed by bullets and others by bombs." Pro-rebel website Tamilnet blamed the government for the killings, while the army pointed the finger at the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who have fought for an ethnic Tamil homeland for two decades. "Savagery shouldn't win over solidarity," says Miribel, "so this isn't going to make us go backwards. We will ask questions though, we'll examine the legalities, we'll look at the conventions. We've received many messages of sympathy from other humanitarian organisations and the United Nations, and I think that the international community has to react. There are too many acts today, like in Lebanon, that are committed against civilians, even though it's soldiers who are doing the fighting - and we must react to that. So we're not to give up, we're going to fight so that solidarity and humanity progress and are respected, which isn't happening today." The French government angrily condemned the murders, and the news shocked the tsunami aid community in the nearby north-eastern port town of Trincomalee. For the moment, ACF operations in Sri Lanka have been put on stand-by - but Miribel is determined that his organisation isn't going to stop helping people in hostile environments - in spite of the risks. "We'll carry on working in conflict zones, we have strict operational procedures for that," he said. "This kind of accident has never happened to us before, there was no perceivable threat at all. There are some people from headquarters, who were there just a few days ago, there were expatriates there too, so it's a very sudden attack. It happens when you work in the kind of areas that we work in." When Reuters and other media visited Mutur with the military on Saturday (August 6) as firing continued in its suburbs, local commanders said they had reports the Tigers had killed Muslim civilians. But asked about other civilian losses, they did not mention the dead aid staff, of whom at least 14 were Tamil and one Muslim. Hardline government allies from the majority Sinhalese community have long accused aid agencies of favouring Tamils and aiding the rebels. Angry mobs have attacked several aid agencies trying to move into the conflict area over several days.

ITN Source | August 8, 2006

Tags:. .environments. .wearing. .committed. .shocked. .respected