Gunmen kill Buddhist monk in eastern Sri Lanka

Gunmen stormed a Buddhist temple in eastern Sri Lanka and shot dead the chief monk, and the military said four Tamil Tiger rebels were killed in clashes with soldiers in the northwest.

The Rev. Handungamuwe Nandarathana was at his temple in the eastern district of Trincomalee on Sunday when unidentified assailants killed him, the defense ministry said, without releasing further details.

Officials offered no word on who they suspected killed the monk, a member of Sri Lanka’s majority ethnic group, the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese.

Trincomalee lies close to territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers, who have been fighting for nearly a quarter century for a homeland for Sri Lanka’s largely Hindu Tamil minority.

The Tamils have faced decades of discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese, who account for more than 70% of the country’s 20 million people and dominate its government and military.

A 2002 cease-fire collapsed in the last 19 months, as fighting left an estimated 4,000 more people dead. More than 69,000 people have been killed since Sri Lanka’s civil war began in 1983.