The Syrian-registered ship, the Captain Ali, set sail from Ipswich on April 20, carrying nearly 900 tons of food, medicine and other aid donated by British Tamils, according to Mercy Mission to Vanni, the group that sent the supplies.
However, the Sri Lankan navy said the ship had set sail “under the pretext of a mercy mission” and seized it 150 nautical miles off the coastline before escorting it to Colombo. Among the 13 crew members and two passengers detained in Colombo for questioning was Uthayanan Thavarajasingam, a 51-year-old British charity worker.
“This is a purely humanitarian mission and the longer the aid is delayed, the more people are suffering in the camps,” said Arjunan Ethirveerasingam a spokesman for Mercy Mission. “All we want is to distribute the aid.”
But a Sri Lankan military spokesman said: “The ship has arrived here under the pretext of a mercy mission. We had no details of the ship or cargo apart from that it (the cargo) was loaded by LTTE supporters in the UK.”
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So search the ship, bring it to a mutually agreed location, watch the Tamils off-load and seize any weapons. It seems pretty simple to me…