Photographs: (L) K. Chandramohan, (R) S. Shanmuganathan

On June 3rd 2007, two Tamil Red Cross volunteers who were abducted whilst they were in Colombo for a tsunami relief program were found shot dead.

The two Tamils, 38 year old Sinnarajah Shanmuganathan and 28 year old Karthigesu Chandramohan, were both from Batticaloa.

They were part of a group of six people who were attending a training programme related to tsunami relief work in the Southern capital, and were at Fort Railway station about to take the train back to the Eastern city.

Red Cross director general Neville Nanayakkara told AFP at the time that,

"Some people in civilian clothes said they were from the police and wanted to see the identity cards of the six workers… They took away two of them, saying it was for further questioning".

The men were reportedly taken away by the Sinhala speaking men in a white van. Their bodies were found Sunday in Kiriella, Ratnapura, some 95 km from Colombo.

Then British High Commissioner Dominick Chilcott commented on the killings at the time, stating,

"Targeting people who work for the Red Cross, an organization renowned for its strict neutrality and determination to assist those in need irrespective of their origins, is particularly contemptible"

See reports at the time from TamilNet here and the BBC here.