ON July 23, 1983, a jeep and a truck with 14 soldiers and an officer on a routine patrol from Palali army base in northern Jaffna peninsula were ambushed by about 25 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) men. Only two soldiers survived. The ambush sparked off a festering ethnic war that has claimed over 50,000 lives and shows no signs of abating 13 years later.