Rescued evacuees thank Navy with tears

By Ananth PALAKIDNAR

The Navy's Medical Unit played an untiring role in evacuating the sick and wounded civilians who were trapped in Mullaitivu.

According to Navy spokesperson, Captain D.K.P.Dassanayake, Navy 's evacuation of civilians via seas from Mullaitivu to Trincomalee in the past two weeks was one of the remarkable humanitarian operations in the recent years.

Sick and wounded innocent Tamil civilians numbering 1609 have been evacuated from Mullaitivu to Trincomalee so far.The first batch of 356 evacuees were shipped on February 10. Second batch consisting 403 civilians were evacuated on February 12 and the evacuation of third batch of civilians on February 16.

As the LTTE has adamantly denied the land access route to the civilians trapped in the battle hit areas to enter into the safer zones, Navy had rescued them by sea to safer areas.

`MV Green Ocean', the vessel under the ICRC flag, was utilised for evacuation purposes.The civilians who were boarded on this vessel were rushed to the Government Hospital in Trincomalee for immediate medical attention.

Naval doctors and medical staff took care of the evacuees soon after they boarded the vessel.

The fourth batch of evacuees were transported from Mullaitivu on Friday February 20. This batch consisted 195 males, 202 females and 13 girls who needed urgent medical attention.

Navy has worked out an elaborate evacuation operation with the involvement of both male and female sailors along with stand -by rescue and medical teams on special deployment in the North -Eastern seas.

The old civilians, who are very feeble and the critically injured ones, are not only carried in stretches, but the Navy personnel carried them even on their arms with great care.

The civilians, who were rescued from the LTTE clutches, were speechless when they reached the safer zones and thanked the sailors with no expression of words but tears, according to Captain Dasanayake.