COLOMBO, Jan. 6: Two days of fighting between Tamil militants and the security forces have left at least eight dead and more than 50 wounded in northern Sri Lanka, resident’s reported.
Security forces said Tamil militants fired machine guns and mortars at a joint army police camp at Jaffna Fort yesterday for the second day running.
Locals believed at least eight people had died and more than 50 were wounded. The security sources confirmed that five died in the first attack on security forces on Saturday.
Northern security sources said the militants fired on Jaffna Fort from public places such as bus stations in the hope that civilians would be killed in rotatory fire.
President Junius Jayewardene said yesterday that no political solution was possible to the ethnic issue until Tamil militants abandoned arms,
The militants are fighting for a separate state in the north cast charging that the country’s 2.5 million Tamils are discriminated against by the National Sinhala majority.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 24, 1986
