Sri Lankan Civil War: Sixty-one schoolgirls killed in Chencholai bombing by Sri Lankan Air Force air strike.

The Sri Lankan civil war was fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009. Beginning on 23 July 1983, it was an intermittent insurgency against the government by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam led by Velupillai Prabhakaran. The LTTE fought to create an independent Tamil state called Tamil Eelam in the north-east of the island, due to the continuous discrimination and violent persecution against Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government.

The Chencholai bombing took place on 14 August 2006 when the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed a Tamil orphanage in Mullaitivu, northern Sri Lanka, killing 61 girls aged 16 to 18. The Sri Lankan government claimed it was an LTTE rebel training camp. The LTTE, UNICEF, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission and University Teachers for Human Rights all stated those in the compound were not LTTE cadres.

The Sri Lanka Air Force is the air arm and the youngest of the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. It was founded in 1951 as the Royal Ceylon Air Force (RCyAF) with the assistance of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The SLAF played a major role throughout the Sri Lankan Civil War. The SLAF operates more than 160 aircraft.

August 14 is the 226th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 139 days remain until the end of the year.