Sri Lanka reopens probe into massacre of aid workers

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka said on Sunday that it has exhumed the bodies of two workers of a French charity who were among 17 killed in an attack in early August that Nordic truce monitors blamed on government soldiers.   

The workers for Paris-based Action Against Hunger were killed on August 4 in eastern Sri Lanka. The bodies were exhumed after a court order and permission from next of kin for forensic tests by Australian experts to determine the exact cause, a police official said.         

He said the other 15 bodies would also be exhumed in a probe that has been renewed after the Norwegian-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission said in September that the deaths were caused by security forces at Muttur in eastern Sri Lanka during a period of heavy fighting with Tamil rebels in the area in August.    

The government denied its forces were responsible for the massacre.       

The 13 men and four women, aged 23 to 54, worked mostly as engineers on water sanitation and farm projects for the charity.   

Earlier this month, the French charity said it would drastically scale down its operations in Sri Lanka such as tsunami relief efforts and will focus only on emergencies.           

Fierce fighting around Muttur in August between Tamil rebels and soldiers forced thousands to flee the region and the government prevented charities and other groups from immediately inspecting the site of the massacre.