In continued violence in northeastern Sri Lanka, at least four soldiers were killed as a powerful claymore mine exploded on April 17, reported the China View, sourcing the news to Xinhua, the Chinese Official News Agency. The rebellious Tamil Tigers of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) are believed to be behind the incident.



International truce monitors are fearing that the renewed violence has cost over 60 lives during the last nine days. The revived upsurge in violence has hampered efforts by the Norwegian peace facilitators to have the warring sides meeting in Geneva for the second round of the truce talks.



The talks were postponed to April 24-25 from the original dates of April 19-21. The first round of talks was held in February last. The Nordic truce monitors, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) has blamed both sides equally for playing politics endangering the large issue of the peace process.