KILINOCHCHI, SRI LANKA, January 6, 2009: Two days after the fall of Kilinochchi, the town that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had used as their de facto capital was firmly under military control. The Peace Secretariat, where the Tigers met visiting diplomats and journalists during the failed 2002 ceasefire, was a shell. The windows and furniture had gone, the paving stones in the car park had been torn up. They had law courts there, administrative offices, a tax system, even their own bank.
All that has now been smashed and abandoned. But the military has taken a town virtually devoid of people. Apart from soldiers the only signs of life on the streets were stray dogs. The vast majority of the remaining population left with the Tigers towards the east, the jungles and Mullaitivu.