JAFFNA, Aug 16: The Tamil Tigers claimed on Wednesday they had hit a radio tower at a military air base in Jaffna. The military denied the claim, saying that the LTTE had suffered heavy casualties. As the fighting intensified, the power supply was cut off, heightening the travails of over 100,000 civilians in Jaffna trapped in their houses unable to flee the fighting due to a 24-hour curfew that has been lifted only for six hours after in was imposed on Saturday.

“It’s like house arrest. People are starving in their houses. We cannot move out of our gates. At least six hundred students are trapped in their universities,” a senior university academic said when contacted by telephone.

He said at least 2,000 civilians in the Jaffna island of Mandathivu are unable to flee the raging fighting in the area. Meanwhile two students, one from the Jaffna University and the other from the Jaffna technical college was shot dead by the military on Tuesday when they moved out of their education premises during curfew hours, Jaffna, residents allege.