On 29 January 2008, a bus carrying mainly school children and teachers came under a claymore attack by the Sri Lanka military Deep Penetration Unit, near the Madhu church complex in the Mannar district. Twenty people in the bus were killed and a further twenty one, seventeen of them seriously
were injured. Among those killed are thirteen school children and a school principal. All the 13 students who died were aged between 10 and
On that fatal day, the children and others from the displaced community that had taken refuge in the Madhu church complex were returning home, most of them from the Mannar Sinapandivirichchan Government Tamil Mixed School (GTMS), which is 5 Kms away. Both the children and the public take the same bus that plies between Madhu and their school as there is no school bus service. Around 2.30pm as the bus was nearing the Madhu church the claymore exploded.
Names of victims (name, age)
1. A Bruno, 12
2. A Jenistan Peries, 12
3. A Preeton, 14
4. Anton Satheeson, 10
5. Gnanaprakasam John Milton, 16
6. Gunasingam A Tessman, 15
7. K Gerard Gnanakaran, 28
8. K Shanmugasuntharam, 65
9. Mrs Lambert, 50
10. Pathmarasa Janarthanan, 11
11. Rajasooriyan Mangaleswary, 37
12. Rajasooriyar Tharsika, 15
13. S Mary Josepin, 30
14. Santhan Bernard, 16
15. Soosaiappu Samson Souza, 12
16. Stalin Suresh Lambert, 23
17. Vimalanathan Reetamma, 41
18. Xavier Arns Basilio, 10
19. Yute Collins Jeni, 12
20. Yute Conston Rennie, 15
