The ship carrying essential supplies of food and other items to the civilians trapped North of Mullaitivu was back in Trincomalee yesterday, Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told The Bottom Line.

The ship carrying 500 metric tons of supplies had unloaded 142 metric tons on the shores of the Puthumathalan area, when it came under artillery shelling by the LTTE on Monday (09). The vessel was unarmed, but Nanayakkara mentioned that security will be reviewed before the ship is redeployed to the conflict areas. However, the Brigadier said that no injuries had been caused to any person, nor were there any damages caused to the ship after the attack.

The Government strongly condemned the artillery shelling by the LTTE of the ship carrying urgent supplies of food and other essential items to the civilians in trapped area in north of Mullaitivu. Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, “vehemently denounced this cowardly attack by the LTTE on an unarmed vessel engaged in a purely humanitarian mission to feed the people,” the Foreign Ministry said.“The LTTE is trying to starve these self-same Tamil people whom it claims to represent, perhaps with the ulterior motive of giving credence to the myth of starvation that is being circulated in some quarters internationally by the LTTE’s propaganda machinery,” a Ministry release said.

The Minister also said that despite such attacks the Government remains totally committed to ensure that these unfortunate citizens who are innocent victims of LTTE terror will never be abandoned.

Nanayakkara said that despite the heavy fighting between government forces and the LTTE south of Challai in the last few days, 105 civilians had crossed over to the safety zones on Monday while 81 civilians crossed over on Sunday taking the total to close to 38500 civilians who have crossed over to the safety zones till date.