Sri Lankan civil war: Seventeen employees of the French nongovernmental organization ACF International were massacred in Mutur.

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.

Action Against Hunger is a global humanitarian organization which originated in France and is committed to ending world hunger. The organization helps malnourished children and provides communities with access to safe water and sustainable solutions to hunger.

On 4 or 5 August 2006, 17 employees of the French INGO Action Against Hunger were shot at close range in the city of Muttur, Sri Lanka, close to Trincomalee. The victims included 16 minority Sri Lankan Tamils and one Sri Lankan Muslim. The event became known as the Muttur Massacre.

Mutur, also spelled Muthur or Muttur, is a town in the Trincomalee District of Sri Lanka, located about 25 km south of Trincomalee, on the southern side of Trincomalee Harbour. In Tamil it translates to 'ancient village'. Mutur is mostly accessed by sea route. After 2010, a new seaside road was built to link with Trincomalee town via Kinniya.