Special report: Ceasefire over in Sri Lanka

    COLOMBO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Action Contre la Faim () Friday called for more international attention on investigations into the deaths of 17 local aid workers attached to the French charity organization in Sri Lanka's troubled eastern town of Muttur.

    The ACF Director General and Executive Director Benoit Miribel told reporters "the international community wants to follow the investigation, they want to get to the bottom of this".

    Some 17 local workers of ACF, 16 of them from the minority Tamil community, were found murdered in Muttur, the scene of heavy fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels and the government troops on Aug. 1-4.

    "After several attempts to reach Muttur on 4 August despite the ongoing fighting our team reached Muttur on 7 August. 17 of our colleagues were coldly executed by a shot in the head, they were found lined up face to the ground", Miribel said, adding that four of them were women.

    He said the Sri Lankan government has taken the investigation very seriously and asked for foreign forensic expertise on the probe.

    The ACF would follow the investigation closely and would be issuing reports on its progress, Miribel said.

    "For the moment the ACF has suspended all its activities in Sri Lanka and is currently reassessing its presence," he said.

    The ACF said they had over 5,000 local staff members all over the world and this is the first time that its staff has been attacked.

    In the Muttur area, they had been helping 1,000 families to improve hygiene conditions and access to drinking water - those who had been displaced by continuous violence in the eastern region.

    The Sri Lankan government has assured ACF of an independent inquiry into the incident, and has already called for Australian forensic expertise to help the local Crime Investigation Department of the Police to carry out the investigation. Enditem