| Kurukkalmadam massacre | |
|---|---|
  Kurukkalmadam Kurukkalmadam (Sri Lanka) | |
| Location | Kurukkalmadam, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka |
| Date | 13 July 1990 |
| Target | Sri Lankan Muslims |
Attack type | Armed massacre |
| Deaths | 60-168 [1] [2] [3] |
| Perpetrators | Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam |
The Kurukkalmadam massacre was a massacre of Sri Lankan Muslims in Kurukkalmadam by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The number of casualties is estimated to be 60-168. [1] [2]
Following the breakdown of the June 1990 peace talks, Tamil-Muslim relations in the Eastern Province deteriorated rapidly. Many Muslims in the East took a pro-army stance in the war. Some acted as informants for the army, identifying LTTE hideouts and LTTE supporters. [4] A cycle of tit-for-tat violence between the LTTE and Muslim Home Guards emerged, leading to the massacres of civilians on both sides.
Muslim travellers from Kattankudy and Colombo in vehicles, including Hajj pilgrims, were stopped by the LTTE near Kurukkalmadam. [5] Some Muslims were removed from the vehicles but others were allowed to return, allegedly so that they could inform other Muslims about what was happening at Kurukkalmadam. The LTTE supposedly picked which Muslims should live and which should die at random. [6] 35 Muslim bus passengers were shot dead by the LTTE. [7] The LTTE, at first, seemed to only be interested in holding the rest for ransom. However, at some point, the LTTE decided to kill them. The Muslim captives, including seniors and children, were hacked to death and their corpses were burnt.
Various explanations for the decision to massacre exist. One theory is that the LTTE was appealing to the anti-Muslim sentiment among Tamil refugees in the east who saw the Muslims as complicit in government atrocities against Tamils. Tamil villagers in Kurukkalmadam suspected that the LTTE's motive for the massacre was to draw negative army attention towards the villagers. [1] [2] Muslim residents of Kalmunai, on the other hand, saw the massacre as a way to warn Muslims against identifying LTTE hideouts for the Sri Lankan Army. [8]
In response to the massacre, Muslim leaders sought the intervention of the Roman Catholic Church. [9]
Families of the deceased alleged that the bodies of the massacred are in a mass grave at Kaluwanchikudy. In 2014, 66 relatives of the victims requested that the skeletons be exhumed from the mass grave to allow them to give the deceased proper burials. The Kaluwanchikudy court ordered an exhumation and asked the office of the Chief Judicial Medical Officer (Colombo) to carry it out. The Justice Ministry was contacted by the office for funding for experts for a length of time but never responded. [10]
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam was a Tamil militant organization, that was based in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the northeast of the island in response to violent persecution and discriminatory policies against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan Government.
The Sri Lankan civil war was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.
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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.
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The October 1995 Eastern Sri Lanka massacres were a series of massacres of the Sinhalese population in the Eastern Province or Sri Lanka carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the Sri Lankan Civil War.
Eelam War II refers to the second phase of the armed conflict between the Sri Lankan military and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, lasting from June 1990 to 1995. The war erupted after the breakdown of peace talks between the LTTE and the government of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, during which mutual distrust and provocations escalated tensions.
Eelam War III is the name given to the third phase of armed conflict between the Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
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The Kattankudy Mosque Massacre was the killing of over 147 Muslim men and boys on 3 August, 1990. Around 30 armed Tamil militants raided two mosques in Kattankudy where over 300 people were prostrating in Isha prayers. The Sri Lankan government, survivors, and observers accuse the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of committing the crime. The LTTE denied involvement and never retracted the denial.
The Jaffna hospital massacre occurred on October 21 and 22, 1987, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, when troops of the Indian Peace Keeping Force entered the premises of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, an island nation in South Asia, and killed between 60 and 70 patients and staff. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the government of Sri Lanka, and independent observers such as the University Teachers for Human Rights and others have called it a massacre of civilians.
The 1987 Eastern Province massacres were a series of massacres of the Sinhalese population in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka by Tamil mobs and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Though they began spontaneously, they became more organized, with the LTTE leading the violence. Over 200 Sinhalese were killed by mob and militant violence, and over 20,000 fled the Eastern Province. The violence has been described as having had the appearance of a pogrom, with the objective of removing Sinhalese from the Eastern Province.
The Eravur massacre was a massacre of Sri Lankan Muslims in Eravur by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The LTTE denied its involvement, but eyewitnesses and observers claim it was an LTTE massacre. The casualty figure is unclear, ranging from 116 - 173.
The Veeramunai massacres refers to the mass killing and disappearances of over 250 Tamil civilians by Sri Lankan security forces and Muslim home guards in 1990.