Word: lankans
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...next cot an elderly Sri Lankan woman shakes uncontrollably, her frail body racked by thirst, hunger and the blistering heat. "I've never seen anything like this," says Dr. Khaled Abu-Halimeh of the Jordanian Red Crescent Society, who treats 60 patients a day in the makeshift medical tent. "Without more water, medicine and food, we'll be faced with a disaster...
...fighting marks the resumption of an old battle: since 1983, the Sri Lankan army and the Tigers have fought for control of the island's northern and eastern regions, where the Tigers want to declare an independent state called Eelam. So far, the conflict has cost 11,000 lives. Since March, the Tigers and the government have been on peaceful, if wary, terms. But in recent weeks tensions climbed as the rebels, accusing Sri Lankan leaders of delaying elections, promised a fight if the government did not deliver. They were as good as their word...
Pressured by Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa, who succeeded Jayewardene in 1989, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi agreed last year to withdraw Indian troops. The departure was hastened by Gandhi's ouster in elections last November. His successor, V.P. Singh, takes a less muscular approach to foreign policy. Said a senior aide to Singh: "We are glad to get out. We were not wanted there...
...When 64 Tamils landed at London's Heathrow Airport in February 1987, British authorities attempted to deport 58 of them. The official explanation was that the asylum seekers "failed to prove they had a justifiable fear of persecution," although several of them bore torture marks inflicted in Sri Lankan prisons. Panicked, the refugees stripped off their clothes on $ Heathrow's tarmac and refused to budge. A court injunction eventually forced authorities to grant the Tamils access to legal representation. Most of them remain in Britain awaiting a final disposition of their cases, but some were sent home; five of those...
...invaders left at least 30 dead, most of them civilians, and nearly 100 injured. According to Foreign Minister Fathulla Jameel, several eyewitnesses identified as the leader of the band a once prominent Maldivian businessman named Abdulla Lutefi, who currently operates a farm near the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. Several years ago, Lutefi was arrested for entering Maldives with a firearm, apparently in an attempt to overthrow Ibrahim Nasir, Gayoom's predecessor as President. Both Sri Lankan and Maldivian authorities suspect that Lutefi may have hired the Tamil mercenaries, many of whom have become increasingly inactive since India sent army...