[Unicef]

VAVUNIYA, Sri Lanka, 20 OCTOBER 2011- No words are needed. No translations. Her face, her gestures speak a language known across the world - a language of pain, of loss, yet somehow still of human hope. Bent double at 91 years of age, Meenadchy was left for dead in the chaos of the final stages of Sri Lanka’s 27 year war. In peace she longs for one thing: her missing granddaughter.

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[BBC]

Weeping parents have been demonstrating in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, asking what has become of close family members who have disappeared.

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[ AFP ]

More than 100 children were among a large number of Tamil civilians killed in a weekend “bloodbath” in Sri Lanka, the United Nations’ spokesman in Colombo, Gordon Weiss, said Monday. He said the UN had been warning of a bloodbath as tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in a narrow patch of coastline where the Tamil Tigers are fighting to hold back a massive military assault. “The large scale killing of civilians, including the death of over 100 children, over the weekend shows that the bloodbath scenario has become a reality,” Weiss told AFP.

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[UNICEF]

Sennappu had a split second, a moment, literally a heartbeat to throw her body around her 18-month-old daughter before the bomb landed. Her reactions were enough time to save the life of her baby girl. Sennappu was killed instantly. As Sri Lanka’s conflict has grown in intensity, so too has the number of civilians injured and killed. UNICEF has consistently called upon the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE (the rebel group known as the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam) to give absolute priority to the protection of civilians. And yet mothers like Sennappu continue to die, as do children.

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