Soaking in Blood—Again
Sri Lankan violence costs 1,000 lives. Relief efforts set back.by Anto Akkara in Sri Lanka
09/27/2006

Braving gunfire, bombs, and artillery rounds, a fact-finding team from Sri Lanka's independent Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies in early August made its way into Muttur in the besieged northeast. The army of the Buddhist-dominated country and Tamil Tiger rebels, who seek autonomy for mainly Hindu Tamil-majority areas, were fighting intensely around the small coastal town.

On Sunday, August 6, the team arrived at the office of Action Against Hunger, a French charity, to find the corpses of 17 local Tamil aid workers. Someone had carefully arranged 15 bodies, each with a gunshot to the back of the head, face down on the front lawn. Two more workers who apparently attempted to flee were found shot dead in a car.

"The sight was too much to handle," one team member told Sri Lankan media. the rest