Sri Lanka rebels say army shells kill 3 in east

Colombo, Jan 8: Sri Lankan army shells hit a hospital complex in the island's restive northeast district of Trincomalee today, killing three civilians and wounding 11, the Tamil Tigers said.

The military was not immediately available for comment on the incident in the town of Vakarai, which lies in a pocket of rebel-held coastal territory around 240 km northeast of Colombo which the army has surrounded and vowed to take control of.

''Several shells fell on the Vakarai hospital roof and people who had taken refuge in the hospital complex were hit by the shells, killing three and injuring 11,'' the rebels' Peace Secretariat said in a statement posted on its Web site www.ltteps.org.

Neither aid organisations nor Nordic truce monitors have access to the Vakarai area, where thousands of displaced ethnic Tamils are stranded in camps, and it was not possible to independently confirm the casualties.

The incident came hours after the military said suspected Tigers blew up an electricity transformer (10 km) north of the capital Colombo early today, disrupting power supplies and damaging 10 homes but causing no casualties.

That blast in turn comes after two deadly suspected Tiger bomb attacks on passenger buses last week killed 17 civilians and wounded over 100.

REUTERS

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