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 the control of Kilinochchi town.

LTTE was finally defeated by the government forces in May 2009 ending the 26 years 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 in order to obtain space for a water supply and sanitation improvement project that commenced in 2020 by the Department of Water Supply.