Cite
MLA
“Operation Riviresa and the fall of Jaffna.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/operation-riviresa-1995/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Operation Riviresa and the fall of Jaffna. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/operation-riviresa-1995/
The army captured Jaffna town in early December 1995 and the rest of the peninsula by mid-1996; the LTTE withdrew to the Vanni.
01The advance on Jaffna
The offensive opened on 17 October 1995 from the Palaly base in the north of the peninsula. Columns pushed south and west through the villages of Valikamam toward Jaffna town under heavy fire. As the army closed in at the end of October, the LTTE called on the people of Jaffna to leave, and a vast column of civilians crossed the lagoon and the causeways toward Chavakachcheri and the Vanni in the rain. The army entered Jaffna and raised the national flag over the town on 5 December.
02After the fall
Follow-up operations in 1996 took the Vadamarachchi and Thenmarachchi areas, and many civilians drifted back. Jaffna, with the Nallur Kandaswamy temple at its heart, stayed under government control for the rest of the war, supplied by sea and air, because the land route through the Vanni was still held by the LTTE. The Tigers answered within months by overrunning the Mullaitivu base. Riviresa had won the peninsula; it had not broken the LTTE.
Riviresa ended the LTTE’s hold on the Tamils’ chief town and turned the war into a struggle for the Vanni and the A9 road.
