By Bernama
Colombo : At least 15 Tamil Tiger rebels were killed and 15 others injured in clashes with the government troops in the northern battle fronts, China’s Xinhua news agency quoted military officials as saying Saturday.
The rebels were killed on Friday in the Vauniya, Mannar and Welioya districts, the officials said, adding a soldier was also killed.
Meanwhile the Catholic Bishop of Mannar Rayappu Joseph has appealed to both the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and the government to free the Madu church area, 279 km northeast of the capital Colombo, from the on going battle.
The church is much revered by the island’s Catholic minority and located in the rebel area. On Thursday, the priests in the church with the people who had taken refuge there moved the statue of the virgin Mary from the church to the rebel held Kilinochchi district.
“We had to do it because there was continued shelling”, Bishop Rayappu Joseph told reporters.
He said if both sides did not cease the military activity there was a serious danger of church being affected by continued long range shelling.
Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman said the safety of the church was very much a concern for the military as the LTTE kept on attacking the military from its surroundings.
The action around the Madu church area is part of the military’s attempted advance in to the LTTE controlled territory in the northern districts of Kilinochchi and Mullaithivu.
More than 70,000 people have died in the island’s long drawn out separatist armed conflict since the mid 1980s.