LTTE Destroyed Water Tower (Kilinochchi)

LTTE Destroyed Water Tower was a war monument located in Kilinochchi town, Sri Lanka. The tower was bombed and fallen down in 2009 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant group designated as a terrorist organization by 32 countries.

Located on the A9 highway, Kilinochchi was the former administrative capital of the LTTE (Hyndman & Amarasingam, 2014). In December 2008, as the Sri Lankan armed forces launched heavy attacks on Kilinochchi, the LTTE decided to destroy the water tower before they fled the town (Hyndman & Amarasingam, 2014). Accordingly, the tower was destroyed by them on 2 January 2009 when government forces successfully took control of Kilinochchi town.

LTTE was finally defeated by the government forces in May 2009 ending the 26-year-long Sri Lanka Civil War. After that, the site of the fallen water tower was transformed into a fully-fledged tourist site, equipped with a plaque and a souvenir store (Hyndman & Amarasingam, 2014). However, the remains of the tower were removed to obtain space for a water supply and sanitation improvement project that commenced in 2020 by the Department of Water Supply.