Expatriate aid worker shot in northeast Sri Lanka

Colombo, June 14: An expatriate aid worker with the international organisation Mercy Corps was shot in the head on a beach in Sri Lanka's restive northeast during a visit to monitor post-tsunami projects, the group said today.

The man was wounded in the back of the head last night in Trincomalee and was transferred to a hospital in Colombo, but his condition did not appear to be critical, Mercy Corps Programme Director Iveta Ouvry said.

The shooting comes on the heels of a series of attacks on aid workers as renewed civil war between the state and Tamil Tigers escalates, but it was unclear who was behind the shooting or whether the man was deliberately targeted.

''One of our Mercy Corps international staff members ... was shot,'' Ouvry said. ''We don't know if it was an incident or deliberate or anything so far. It was on the beach at the Club Oceanic hotel in Trincomalee.'' ''He sustained an injury at the back of his head,'' she added.

''He was doing monitoring of our work in Trincomalee. He was on a field trip.'' Police and the military confirmed the shooting, but had few details and said investigations were continuing.

The Club Oceanic is popular with international aid workers visiting Trincomalee, an area which has seen fierce fighting since the opening of a new chapter in the conflict that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983.

The shooting comes a fortnight after two local volunteers of the Sri Lanka Red Cross were abducted from a train station in Colombo and were later found murdered.

International observers have criticised President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government for making ''hardly any noticeable progresss'' in probing a series of killings and abuses, including the massacre of 17 local staff of Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger) in August 2006.

That was the worst attack on aid workers since a 2003 suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

Reuters

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