DATE=10/05/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=LANKA/RALLY (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-267509
BYLINE=VANDANA CHOPRA
DATELINE=COLOMBO
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: At least 10 people have been killed and more than 45 wounded in a bombing at an election rally in north-central Sri Lanka. Vandana Chopra reports from Colombo.
TEXT: Sri Lankan police officials say the suspected Tamil rebel suicide bomber detonated the explosives while running towards the rally platform. The election rally was organised by the ruling party coalition in Medawachchiya, 216 kilometres northeast of the capital, Colombo.
Security officials say Sri Lanka's deputy health minister, Tissa Karalliyedda, narrowly escaped the explosion. He was attending the rally when the blast went off. Spectators and security personnel account for most of the wounded.
The explosion Thursday was the second at a ruling party election rally in the past week. More than 40 people have been killed in bomb attacks and other clashes between political parties during the campaign for the general elections which are set for October 10th.
The independent monitoring group, the Center for Monitoring Election Violence, says there have been more than one-thousand incidents of election-related violence in Sri Lanka since campaigning began on September Third.
Meanwhile, security has been tightened in Colombo ahead of the elections. Government officials say the military has been put on full alert throughout the country.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are fighting a war for a separate homeland for the minority Tamils in a predominantly Sinhalese Sri Lanka. More than 60-thousand people have died in the 17-year ethnic war. (Signed)
NEB/VC/JWH
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