61 Dead in Sri Lankan Violence; Village Massacre Toll Rises to 45

At least 61 people have been killed in political violence in Sri Lanka since Sunday evening, including 18 children who were among those slain in a village massacre, police and military sources said late Monday.

The death toll from a Sunday night massacre in Mahakongaskade has risen to at least 45, police said.

About 75 to 100 suspected Tamil separatist guerrillas raided the northern hamlet and killed 13 men, 14 women and 18 children--all from the majority Sinhalese ethnic group, the sources said. Another 17 villagers were wounded.

“They were shooting, stabbing and cutting and then set fire to the houses,” a police official said.

The attack was believed to be the single worst incident of violence since Indian troops arrived in October, 1987, to enforce a peace accord aimed at ending a five-year separatist war by Tamil rebels.

Later Monday, police said Indian troops killed 11 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas and wounded seven in an ambush near the northern town of Vavuniya.

And in the southern city of Matara, soldiers killed five people when they opened fire on anti-government demonstrators.

Military officials suspect that the Tigers, the most powerful Tamil guerrilla group, committed the village massacre.

Political sources speculated that the Tigers attacked to protest the planned formation of a provincial council in the Tamil-dominated north and ethnically mixed east. The massacre also occurred on Army Day, which honors Sri Lankan soldiers involved in a drive against the insurgents in 1987.

The provincial council is a key part of a pact signed by the Indian and Sri Lanka governments aimed at ending the island’s ethnic violence. About 52,000 Indian troops have been deployed in the nation.