The journalist Punyamoorthi Sathyamoorthi was engaged in war reporting when he was critically injured in a shell attack and due to the unavailability of proper medical treatment, had died on February 18, 2009 in Thevipuram in Mulaithivu. Floral tributes were offered at his monument in Jaffna in his memory. 

In addition, his fellow journalists had released a book containing his writings and life’s works at the Jaffna Hindu College hall.

Sathyamoorthi had contributed to many local Tamil and international news agencies and his death was deemed a war crime by the International Journalists Rights movement at the time he was killed.

Reporters without borders (RSF) had condemned the attack in a statement, “Aerial attacks on an area where civilians and Tamil media personnel are stranded, is a war crime.”

The web site that organised Sathyamoorthi’s commemoration JDS stated that the government’s medical supplies ban imposed at the time to Vanni, eventually determined Sathyamoorthi’s fate.