12 Feared Dead in Clash Between Sri Lankan Navy, Tamil rebels

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, June 15, 2003

12 Feared Dead in Clash Between Sri Lankan Navy, Tamil rebels

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A vessel belonging to Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels was sunk after a clash between the rebels and the navy in the northeast of the country on Saturday and 12 rebels on board were feared dead, truce monitors said.

"There were 12 Sea Tigers on board and supposedly they jumped overboard but there were no survivors and wreckage of the boat there," said Agnes Bragadottir, a spokeswoman for the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission who oversees the truce between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and the government.

Navy said that the rebels blasted the ship when confronted withthe navy in Trincomalee in the northeast of the country early Saturday.

The incident was seen as a new blow to the country's fragile Norwegian-brokered peace bid which stalled in April when the LTTE rebels pulled out of the talks with the government.

The rebels also stayed away from the Tokyo donor conference held on Monday and Tuesday, at which the international donors have pledged 4.5 billion US dollars for the reconstruction of the war-torn island.

Both the rebels and the government have held six rounds of peace talks since last September with progress following a bilateral truce in February.

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