The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) strongly condemns the claymore mine attacks on the Sri Lankan army in Jaffna on 8 and 10 April 2006 and on the Sri Lankan navy in Trincomalee district today. Over 20 people have been killed in violent attacks over the past five days and many civilians have also been caught in the above mentioned attacks resulting in both death and serious injuries.

The Head of the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission, Major General Ulf Henricsson, visited Jaffna today and had fruitful meetings with the Head of the Security Forces in Jaffna and the Commander of the Northern Naval Command. He also visited the site of the claymore mine attack that took place yesterday in Jaffna.

Head of Mission also hopes to meet with the LTTE leadership in Kilinochchi tomorrow to get their reaction.

SLMM is making inquiries into all three attacks but will refrain from making any further comments regarding the perpetrators and possible motives until further inquiries have been done.

At this stage it is safe to say that these attacks are seriously jeopardizing not only the Geneva talks scheduled later this month but is having a detrimental effect on the ceasefire.

Head of Mission would like to commend the Government of Sri Lanka for not taking any retaliatory actions and thereby adhering to the CFA. We would like to urge both Parties to do everything in their power to maintain the ceasefire and not to engage in violence or provocative acts that can lead to any further escalations so that the situation does not slip back to the one we had in the months of December and January where countless number of soldiers and civilians lost their lives.