The following is a list of chronological attacks attributed to the LTTE in the 1990s during the Sri Lankan Civil War. The deadliest attack for the decade was the 1990 massacre of Sri Lankan Police officers.
Date | Attack | Location | Sinhalese | Tamils | Muslims | Death toll | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
11 June | 1990 massacre of Sri Lankan Police officers : Over 600 unarmed police officers are shot dead by the LTTE in Police Stations across eastern Sri Lanka | Eastern Province | 600-774 | 600-774 | [1] [2] [3] |
Date | Attack | Location | Sinhalese | Tamils | Muslims | Death toll | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
May 1 | Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa killed in LTTE suicide bomb attack at a May Day Rally. | Colombo, Colombo District | 1 | ? | ? | 1 | [8] |
July 25 | Janakapura Village massacre: The LTTE raids a Sinhalese village and kills nine civilians by means of stabbing, shooting and blowing up with grenades. | Janakapura | 9 | [17] | |||
November 10 | Battle of Pooneryn : Eight officers and 233 soldiers were declared killed in action in LTTE's attack on the Pooneryn defences. The LTTE also executed 200 soldiers captured during this attack on the Pooneryn army camp. | Pooneryn, Kilinochchi District | 241 |
Date | Attack | Location | Sinhalese | Tamils | Muslims | Death toll | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
January 19 | Rambewa bus bombing: A LTTE bomb exploded in a private bus carrying civilians from Sripura to Anuradhapura, causing the death of ten Sinhalese civilians and injuring 51. | Rambewa, Anuradhapura District | 10 | 10 | [5] | ||
March 16 | Kudiramalai Fishing boats Attack: LTTE cadres attacked about ten fishing boats, causing the death of 17 fishermen and injuring three; five fishermen were reported missing. | Off Kudiramalai, Puttalam District | 17 | [5] | |||
October 24 | Sri Lankan presidential candidate and opposition leader Gamini Dissanayake is killed by an LTTE suicide bomber who explodes herself at a campaign rally in Colombo. At least 50 others were killed in the blast, including MPs Ossie Abeygunasekara, Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi, and G. M. Premachandra. A further 75 were seriously hurt. | Colombo, Colombo District | ≈50 | ≈50 | [18] [19] [20] |
Date | Attack | Location | Sinhalese | Tamils | Muslims | Death toll | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
February 10 | Oddaimvadi Village attack: The Muslim village of Oddaimavadi, Batticaloa was attacked by a group LTTE cadres, who shot 5 civilians to death and wounded 3 others. | Oddaimavadi, Batticaloa District | 5 | 5 | [29] | ||
May 12 | Morawewa Village attack: The village and police station of Morawewa, Trincomalee was attacked by LTTE cadres who butchered 5 civilians. | Morawewa, Trincomalee District | 5 | [29] | |||
July 2 | Erakkandy Village Massacre: the Muslim village of Erakkandy, Trincomalee was stormed by a group of over 100 LTTE cadres wielding sharp weapons, clubs and firearms who butchered 34 civilians. | Erakkandy, Trincomalee District | 34 | 34 | [29] | ||
October 15 | 1997 Colombo World Trade Centre Bombing : An LTTE bomb exploded at the Colombo World Trade Centre, killing 13 and injuring hundreds. | Colombo, Colombo District | 13 | [14] [30] |
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.
The Central Bank bombing was one of the deadliest attacks carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) during the separatist civil war in Sri Lanka between the government and the Tamil Tigers.
The Black Tigers was an elite suicide commando unit of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant Tamil separatist organization in Sri Lanka.
The 1958 anti-Tamil pogrom and riots in Ceylon, also known as the 58 riots, refer to the first island-wide ethnic riots and pogrom to target the minority Tamils in the Dominion of Ceylon after it became an independent dominion from Britain in 1948. The riots lasted from 22 May until 29 May 1958 although sporadic disturbances happened even after the declaration of emergency on 27 May 1958. The estimates of the murders range, based on recovered bodies, from 158 to 1,500. Although most of the victims were Tamils, Sinhalese and their property were also affected by retaliatory attacks by Tamil mobs throughout the Batticaloa and Jaffna districts. As the first full-scale race riot in the country in over forty years, the events of 1958 shattered the trust the communities had in one another and led to further polarisation.
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 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.
Eelam War I is the name given to the initial phase of the armed conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE.
Eelam War II is the name given to the second phase of armed conflict between Sri Lankan military and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The war started after the failure of peace talks between the Premadasa government and the LTTE. This phase of the war was initiated by the LTTE who massacred almost 600 Sinhalese and Muslim police personnel after they were ordered by the Premadasa government to surrender to the LTTE. The truce was broken on June 10, 1990, when the LTTE in October expelled all the 28,000 Muslims residing in Jaffna.
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).
The Aranthalawa massacre was the massacre of 33 Buddhist monks, most of them young novice monks, and four civilians by cadres of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam organization on June 2, 1987, close to the village of Aranthalawa, in the Ampara District of Eastern Sri Lanka. The massacre is among the most notorious and devastating atrocities committed by the LTTE during the history of the Sri Lankan Civil War, and continues to be commemorated 35 years on.
The Eastern Theatre of Eelam War IV started in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka on July 21, 2006, when the LTTE cut off the water supply to rice fields in eastern Trincomalee district. The government claimed total control of the Eastern province after capturing Thoppigala on July 11, 2007, after nearly a year of fighting. Major battles took place at Sampoor, Vakarai, Kanchikudicharu, Kokkadichloai and Thoppigala. Military and civilian deaths were relatively low on both sides. Government forces captured much military hardware from the LTTE during the conflict. The civilians managed to flee the combat zones, and this reduced civilian casualties, while swelling the number of internally displaced people (IDP). The world health organization (WHO) estimated ~200,300 IDPs, and claims that significant progress occurred in resettling them. The LTTE vowed to attack Sri Lanka's military and economic targets across the country to retaliate for the capture of the Eastern province from them. This was stated by the leader of the LTTE's political wing, S.P. Thamilchelvan, in a statement to Associated Press on July 12, 2007.
The 1985 Trincomalee massacres refers to a series of mass murder of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan military and Sinhalese home guards in Trincomalee District, Sri Lanka. In a succession of events that spanned over two months, hundreds of Tamil civilians were massacred and thousands were driven out by the Sri Lankan military and Sinhalese mobs in order to colonize the area. Almost every Tamil settlement in the district was destroyed during this well-orchestrated campaign to drive out the local Tamil population. Several Tamil women were also raped. In September 1985, the entire Tamil population of Trincomalee town was displaced to forests and refugee camps in an attack that wiped out the town, including the destruction of 12 temples and a mosque. Since August 16, over 50,000 Tamils who were forced to flee the town ended up in refugee camps in the Jaffna and Batticaloa districts.
The Aluth Oya massacre was the massacre of 127 Sinhalese civilians, including children and women, by the cadres of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam organization on April 17, 1987, near the village of Aluth Oya, on the Habarana Trincomalee road in North Central Province of Sri Lanka. This massacre is considered one of the most notorious and devastating atrocities committed by the LTTE during the history of the Sri Lankan Civil War.
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.
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