Survivors Tell of Sri Lanka Bus Massacre

The bodies were laid out Saturday in a narrow hospital hallway, a corridor of death crowded with sobbing relatives and hospital workers putting small tags on the remains from Friday’s jungle highway massacre in northeastern Sri Lanka.

A total of 126 people were killed when Tamil rebels stopped three buses, two trucks and a car along a jungle road, then sprayed most of the occupants with gunfire. Sixty-four other people were wounded.

Survivors who talked to reporters taken to the scene of the slaughter told of being forced to push their stalled bus, and of smearing themselves and children with the blood of other victims to feign death.

The death toll was among the worst among many massacres since Tamil rebels, demanding regional autonomy, began fighting nearly four years ago against the government dominated by the Sinhalese majority. Both sides have been accused of slaying civilians.

Wore Military Uniforms

Military officials and survivors said the vehicles were stopped by Tamil fighters wearing Sri Lankan military uniforms. Then more militants emerged from the jungle to help in the killing.

“At first we thought they were military officers, but after they started hitting us, we knew they were terrorists,” said Simon Silva, a 68-year-old businessman who survived by hiding under a bus seat.

Another survivor, Nimal Jayatissa, 24, a mason, said the attackers asked Tamils and Muslims to get off the bus. Then one gunman at the front and one at the back opened fire.

“They shot most in the head,” Jayatissa said. He said he survived by smearing himself with blood from wounded passengers and feigning death.

Jayatissa said a whimpering girl about 2 years old was near him when the attackers opened fire. She was unhurt in an initial burst of gunfire.

“I rubbed her face with blood to make her look dead and held her to keep her quiet,” he said. The girl survived.

On Saturday, soldiers took the dead to Kantalai, the nearby village of Habarana and the port city of Trincomalee. The killings took place in a jungle clearing near Alut Oya, about 11 miles from Kantalai.

The hospital hallway here contained 64 victims, including 15 women and seven small children.