| Kokkilai massacre | |
|---|---|
 Location of Northern Province, Sri Lanka | |
| Location | Mullaitivu District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka |
| Date | 1 December 1984 (+8 GMT) |
| Target | Sinhalese civilians |
| Deaths | 11-13 [1] |
| Injured | Unknown |
| Perpetrators | Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam |
The Kokkilai massacre was a massacre of Sinhalese civilians carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the coastal village of Kokkilai. It was the group's second massacre of Sinhalese civilians.
In the early 1900's, Sinhalese Catholic fishing families from Negombo settled in Kokkilai. [2] Throughout the following decades, Kokkilai was a popular fishing spot for migrant Sinhalese fishermen from Negombo. [3] During the 1958 riots and 1977 riots, Sinhalese property had been burned, but Sinhalese and Tamils generally maintained good relations in the area. [1]
During the civil war, the Mullaitivu District was hotly contested between the Sri Lankan government and Tamils. The army had evicted Indian Tamil residents of the Kent and Dollar farms and settled Sinhalese there. A day before the Kokkilai massacre, the LTTE massacred the Sinhalese on the farms. However, unlike the farms, Sinhalese residents of Kokkilai maintained that the government had not settled any Sinhalese in the village. [1]
The LTTE ordered a Tamil van driver to take them to Kokkilai. The van driver had flashed the lights as he approached the Sinhalese, allegedly to warn them of the impending massacre. When the van was near them, the militants jumped out and began throwing explosives and opening fire. Those not immediately killed ran to their boats to flee into the ocean. A child, injured in the gunfire, died in the boat. Two women were bound by their hair and shot dead at point-blank range. In total, around a dozen Sinhalese were killed. The LTTE later boasted about having killed "Sinhalese ruffians." [3]
The survivors of the massacre became refugees and relocated to Negombo, where they found it difficult to adjust to the new fishing conditions, and many stopped fishing outright. [1] In response to the massacres of Sinhalese at Kent and Dollar farm and Kokkilai, S. L. Gunasekara and Davinda Senanayake issued a report that recommended the increased militarization of the colonies in Weli Oya. The government implemented the recommendation by increasing army presence. A more general exodus of Sinhalese from Weli Oya occurred. The Kokkilai massacre had also led to a retaliatory Sinhalese mob attack on Tamils at Thennamarawadi. The army increased measures to drive local Tamils away. [4]
The Kent and Dollar Farm massacres were the first massacres of Sinhalese civilians carried out by the LTTE during the Sri Lankan Civil War. The massacres took place on 30 November 1984, in two tiny farming villages in the Mullaitivu district in north-eastern Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan government labeled this as an attack on civilians by the LTTE.
The Anuradhapura massacre occurred in Sri Lanka in 1985 and was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This was the largest massacre of Sinhalese civilians by the LTTE to date; it was also the first major operation carried out by the LTTE outside a Tamil majority area. Initially, EROS claimed responsibility for the massacre, but it later retracted the statement, and joined the PLOTE in denouncing the incident. The groups later accused the LTTE for the attack. Since then, no Tamil militant group has admitted to committing the massacre. However, state intelligence discovered that the operation was ordered by the LTTE's leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. He assigned the massacre to the LTTE Mannar commander Victor and it was executed by Victor's subordinate Anthony Kaththiar. The LTTE claimed the attack was in revenge of the 1985 Valvettiturai massacre, where the Sri Lanka Army killed 70 Tamil civilians in Prabhakaran's hometown. In 1988, the LTTE claimed that the massacre was planned and executed under the guidance of Indian intelligence agency, RAW.
The Dehiwala train bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the rush hour of July 24, 1996.
The Kalmunai massacre refers to a series of mass killings that occurred in June 1990 in Kalmunai, a municipality within the Ampara District of Sri Lanka's Eastern Province. The massacre of Tamil civilians was allegedly carried out by the Sri Lankan Army in retaliation for an earlier massacre of Sri Lankan police officers. The University Teachers for Human Rights, a human rights organization, put the number of dead in the second massacre at 250, while a local Member of Parliament claimed that at least 160 people were killed.
The Palliyagodella massacre was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) against the mostly Muslim population of the Palliyagodella village located on border region of the northern part of Sri Lanka that were controlled by the Tigers at the time. This was the largest massacre of Muslim civilians by the LTTE to date. Village eyewitnesses claim that some 285 men, women and children, around a third of the population, were killed by a 1,000 strong force of the Tamil Tigers; however, the Sri Lankan government states that the LTTE massacred 166 to 171. All but 40 of the victims of the Palliyathidal massacre were Muslim; the rest were Sinhalese.
The Gonagala Massacre was a massacre that occurred on 18 September 1999, in the small village of Gonagala, located in the Ampara District of Sri Lanka. According to reports, over 50 men, women and children were hacked to death in the middle of the night. The massacre is attributed to the LTTE, which is banned as a terrorist organisation by a number of countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The Kebithigollewa massacre occurred on 15 June 2006 when 60 civilians were killed by an Claymore mine attack on a bus. The U.S and the SLMM claimed that LTTE was the perpetrator.
The Kallarawa massacre was carried out by the LTTE, an organisation which has been banned in 33 countries including the US, Australia, EU, India and Canada due to its terrorist activities.
The October 1995 Eastern Sri Lanka massacres were a series of massacres of the Sinhalese population in the Eastern Province carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Eelam War I is the name given to the initial phase of the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.
A mass murder of police officers took place on 11 June 1990. Members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant organization, are alleged to have killed over 600 unarmed Sri Lanka Police officers in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Some accounts have estimated the number killed as high as 774.
Weli Oya,(Sinhala: වැලිඔය, romanized: Weli Oya) is a Sinhalese colony area in Mullaithivu District, Sri Lanka formerly known as Manal Aru. Weli Oya has been affected by the Sri Lankan civil war and government Sinhala colonization programs.
1984 Kokkilai massacres refers to a series of massacres of Sri Lankan Tamil civilians when the Sri Lankan military attacked the village of Kokkilai and several neighboring villages in Mullaitivu District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka. The attack left several civilians including women and children dead and their property destroyed. The attacks resulted in widespread displacement of native residents and subsequently their lands were colonized by Sinhala settlers.
The Manal Aru massacres of 1984 refers to a series of massacres of Sri Lankan Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan military across numerous traditional Tamil villages in the Manal Aru region which spans across the Mullaitivu and Trincomalee districts. The motive behind the massacres was to drive out the local Tamil population from their villages, in order to replace them with thousands of Sinhala settlers.
The following lists events that happened during 1987 in Sri Lanka.
The following lists events that happened during 1985 in Sri Lanka.
The following lists events that happened during 1983 in Sri Lanka.
The following lists events that happened during 1990 in Sri Lanka.
The Murunkan massacre of Inspector Bastianpillai and his team of police officers was the mass murder of a team of CID officers of the Sri Lanka Police on 7 April 1978 in the jungles of Murunkan in the Vavuniya District. Four police officers including Inspector Bastianpillai were killed by LTTE members led by Uma Maheswaran.
