Operation Poomalai

Operation Poomalai (Tamil: பூமாலை Pūmālai, lit. "Flower Garland"), also known as Eagle Mission 4, was the codename assigned to a mission undertaken by the Indian Air Force to air-drop supplies over the besieged town of Jaffna in Sri Lanka on 4 June 1987 in support of Tamil Tigers during the Sri Lankan Civil War.

Jaffna was at the time under blockade by Sri Lankan troops as a part of Colombo's offensive against the Tamil separatist movement. Concerned over alleged violations of interests of the Tamils, who had broader support among the Tamil population of South India as well as the government, India attempted to negotiate a political settlement but the Indian offers had been rebuffed by Colombo. As civilian casualties grew, calls grew within India to intervene in what was increasingly seen in the Indian (and Tamil) media as a developing humanitarian crisis, especially with reports of aerial bombardment against rebel positions in civilian areas. The Indian Government under Rajiv Gandhi decided to attempt to deliver aid to the northern area of Sri Lanka as a symbolic act of support to the rebels. The first of these efforts, a small naval flotilla, was thwarted by the Sri Lankan Navy. Two days later, in a show of force, India mounted the airdrop over Jaffna.

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka can be traced to the independence of the island in 1948 from Britain. At the time a Sinhala majority government was instituted that passed legislation deemed discriminatory by the substantial Tamil minority population. In the 1970s two major Tamil parties united to form the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) that started agitating for a separate state of Tamil Eelam within the system in a federal structure in northern and eastern Sri Lanka that would grant the Tamils greater autonomy. Outside the TULF, however, factions advocating more radical and militant courses of action soon emerged, and the divisions started flaring into a violent civil war.

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