Sri Lanka probe into death of Tamils

THE Sri Lankan government is to mount an official investigation into the alleged massacre of scores of Tamil villagers, by the army after a local priest reported details of the killing.
Fr Chandra Fernando said that he found piles of charred, half-burned bodies and about 60 severed heads at the village of Udumbankulam, in the north east of the troubled island. The victims were reported to have been peasants working in the rice fields when they were surrounded and massacred by soldiers.
The account of the killing by Fr Fernando, a Tamil and vicepresident of the Satticaloa Citizen's Committee, has been questioned by members of the majority Sinhalese group on the island. They have said that numbers were exaggerated and that the victims were in fact Tamil separatist guerrillas.
Verification of Fr Fernando's report has been made difficult by the fact that Udumbankulam is 10 miles from the nearest road and 60 miles from the nearest town. The priest has asserted that "I never heard, read or saw even in the films and books on Idi Amin and Hitler, such a massacre".
• After church intervention, Penelope Willis, a British Catholic journalist from Cornwall, was released by Tamil separatists who had been holding her hostage. Mrs Willis was seized from the presbytery wheresshe had been staying in the north of the island.