Trincomalee, historically known as Gokanna and Gokarna, is the administrative headquarters of the Trincomalee District and major resort port city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Located on the east coast of the island overlooking the Trincomalee Harbour, Trincomalee has been one of the main centres of Sri Lankan Tamil speaking culture on the island for nearly a millennium. With a population of 99,135, the city is built on a peninsula of the same name, which divides its inner and outer harbours. It is home to the famous Koneswaram temple from where it developed and earned its historic Tamil name Thirukonamalai. The town is home to other historical monuments such as the Bhadrakali Amman Temple, Trincomalee, the Trincomalee Hindu Cultural Hall and, opened in 1897, the Trincomalee Hindu College. Trincomalee is also the site of the Trincomalee railway station and an ancient ferry service to Jaffna and the south side of the harbour at Muttur.
2006 Trincomalee massacre of students or "Trinco 5" was the murder of five Tamil schoolboys by the Special Task Force (STF) in Trincomalee town on 2 January 2006. The case has received considerable international attention and is regarded as an emblematic case of impunity since no one has been held accountable for the crimes.
The Vankalai massacre was a massacre of a family of four minority Sri Lankan Tamils at the hands of the Sri Lankan military personnel from the village of Vankalai in Mannar District, Sri Lanka on June 8, 2006. The victims were tortured and the mother was gang raped before her murder.
The Mavil Aru is a waterway that supplies water to some regions of eastern Sri Lanka. The closing of the sluice gates is considered to be the official beginning of the Eelam War IV although violence including skirmishes and bombings happened before.
The Kumudini or Kumuthini boat massacre happened on 15 May 1985, when at least 23 minority Sri Lankan Tamil adults and children on a ferry boat named Kumudini sailing from the island of Delft to the island of Nainathivu were killed by Sri Lankan Navy personnel.
The 2006 Trincomalee Massacre of NGO Workers, also known as the Muttur Massacre, took place on 4 or 5 August 2006, when 17 employees of the French INGO Action Against Hunger were shot at close range in the city of Muttur, Sri Lanka, close to Trincomalee. The victims included sixteen minority Sri Lankan Tamils and one Sri Lankan Muslim.
Arunasalam Thangathurai was a Sri Lankan Tamil lawyer, politician and Member of Parliament.
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.
Trincomalee District is one of the 25 districts of Sri Lanka, the second level administrative division of the country. The district is administered by a District Secretariat headed by a District Secretary appointed by the central government of Sri Lanka. The capital of the district is the city of Trincomalee.
Kinniya is a town on the east coast of Sri Lanka, in the Trincomalee District of the Eastern Province. It is about 20 km (12 mi) from the city of Trincomalee and 240 km (150 mi) from Colombo. Located in Sri Lanka's dry zone, the Kinniya region often experiences hot and dry weather with very little precipitation. Kinniya Bridge is Sri Lanka's longest bridge, which attracts many tourists in the town. Being adjacent to the Trincomalee Harbour, Kinniya was devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Mutur Electoral District was an electoral district of Sri Lanka between August 1947 and February 1989. The district was named after the town of Mutur in Trincomalee District, Eastern Province. The district was a two-member constituency between March 1960 and July 1977. The 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka introduced the proportional representation electoral system for electing members of Parliament. The existing 160 mainly single-member electoral districts were replaced with 22 multi-member electoral districts. Mutur electoral district was replaced by the Trincomalee multi-member electoral district at the 1989 general elections, the first under the PR system, though Mutur continues to be a polling division of the multi-member electoral district.
Trincomalee may refer to:
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.
1985 Muttur massacre was a mass killing of Tamil civilians in the town of Muttur in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. The massacre occurred when all three divisions of the Sri Lankan military attacked the town by land, air and sea. The motive of the attacks was deliberately aimed at slaughtering ethnic Tamils, who formed the local population in the region. The killings lasted from the 8th to 10th November of 1985.
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.
Kabeeb Mohamed Thowfeek is a Sri Lankan politician and former Member of Parliament.
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 Muttur Polling Division is a Polling Division in the Trincomalee Electoral District, in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka.
The 1983 anti Tamil pogrom in Trincomalee was organised violence by Sinhalese mobs and security forces, which targeted the Tamil population of Trincomalee between June and July 1983.
