Jaffna hospital massacre
The Jaffna hospital massacre occurred on October 21 and 22, 1987, during the Sri Lankan Civil War, when troops of the Indian Peace Keeping Force entered the premises of the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, an island nation in South Asia, and killed between 60 and 70 patients and staff. The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the government of Sri Lanka, and independent observers such as the University Teachers for Human Rights and others have called it a massacre of civilians.
| Jaffna hospital massacre | |
|---|---|
Location of Sri Lanka | |
| Location | Jaffna, Sri Lanka |
| Date | October 21–22, 1987 (+6 GMT) |
| Target | Sri Lankan Tamil patients, nurses, doctors and staff of the hospital |
Attack type | Shooting, grenade explosion |
| Weapons | Firearms, grenades |
| Deaths | 60–70 |
| Injured | 50+ (estimated) |
| Perpetrators | Indian Peace Keeping Force soldiers deployed in Sri Lanka |
However, the Indian Army maintains that the soldiers were fired upon and the Indian army officer in charge of the military operations, Lt. Gen. Depinder Singh, claimed that these civilians were killed in a crossfire between soldiers and rebels. Soldiers responsible for this massacre were not prosecuted by the Indian government.