Sri Lanka aid group says 15 staff executed

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 6 (Reuters) Fifteen local aid staff working on post-tsunami rebuilding have been found executed in northeast Sri Lanka after heavy fighting, the main umbrella body for aid agencies in the country said today.

There had been reports and rumours that the local aid workers had been killed. The Consortium for Humanitarian Agencies (CHA) said that one of the relief teams that reached the battered town of Mutur had found the corpses in an aid agency office.

''They found them in the office on the ground, lying face down -- executed,'' said CHA chief Jeevan Thiagarajah.

He said it was not clear who had killed them. Mutur town has seen days of fighting between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels.

REUTERS LL RK2202