TAMILNET reports ‘mad shelling’ yesterday morning by the Sri Lanka Army into civilian areas in Mu’l’livaaykkaal north, forcing everyone into the bunkers.
Several civilians have been killed. The wounded are left to die as people are not able to move out of the bunkers due to the unprecedented barrage by the SLA from 4.30am.
The SLA deployed a ‘scorched earth’ barrage using all kinds of weapons from 6.00am Tuesday in Valaignarmadam, breaking the LTTE defence line.
As the shelling by the SLA started to target civilian areas on Tuesday morning, the southern part of Mu’l’livaaykkaal has become completely congested and roads are blocked with civilians who managed flee from the northern areas.
Shells fired by artillery formations, Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers (MBRL), heavy mortars, RPGs and whizzing bullets from 50 calibre heavy machine guns from the advancing SLA units from Valaignarmadam, have forced all the civilians, including the medical staff of the makeshift hospital in Mu’l’livaaykkaal, to stay under bunkers.
There are many dead bodies of civilians along the roads. Only some civilians have managed to bury or burn their dead.
Five of the patients at the hospital ward were killed in SLA shelling. One of the medical staff had sustained injuries.
The number of casualties could be in the hundreds as medical sources feared many of the wounded would also have succumbed to their injuries due to the shelling that continued for hours in the morning.
Latest reports from the medical authorities said more than 200 civilians have managed to reach the makeshift hospital. Most of them have been bandaged, but there are no medical supplies to treat the wounds.
Meanwhile, chaos prevailed in southern Mu’l’livaaykkaal as Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) bombers entered the airspace around 1.20pm Tuesday.
Reliable military sources in the South said that the SLA had advanced at least 600 metres breaking the defence line of the LTTE in Valaignarmadam Monday night, at the cost of heavy losses to SLA soldiers despite the deployment of superior firepower.