Widow S. Ganesh was burying her 54-year-old husband as well as daughter Kavitha, 27, both employees of the French charity Action Against Hunger (Action Contre la Faim, ACF). She collapsed at the seafront burial in the port city of Trincomalee.

The father and daughter were buried side by side in sealed coffins while security forces and police guarded the surrounding streets.

The hospital at Trincomalee began autopsies on the 17 aid workers gunned down at the weekend in the town of Muttur, 12.5 kilometres (7.5 miles) across the Koddiyar bay from Trincomalee. Six were completed by late afternoon.

Relatives said doctors told them the victims had been shot dead.

Most of the victims, 13 men and four women aged 23 to 54, were engineers specialising in water sanitation and agronomy or project managers, ACF said.

The charity workers -- all Sri Lankan nationals -- were found dead on Sunday in their office in the northeastern town of Muttur, where heavy fighting has pitted troops against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Each side has blamed the other for the killings.

ACF director Benoit Miribel was to head to Sri Lanka Wednesday to attend ceremonies commemorating the dead and oversee the launch of an independent investigation.

Although ACF recovered the bodies from Muttur on Monday, the authorities have yet to allow relief agencies access to the area. The International Committee of the Red Cross said they are awaiting clearance to go in.

Outside the Trincomalee hospital, Khanthasami Sivapaka cried for justice for his favourite daughter.

Beside him were freshly painted maroon coffins, delivered to the Trincomalee General Hospital's gloomy mortuary where the bodies lay covered in white plastic sheets on the stained floor.

"My daughter is gone, my daughter is gone," Sivapaka whispered to himself, tears streaming from his eyes swollen after sleepless nights wondering about the fate of his beloved Sivapataksan Romila.

The vivacious 25-year-old Romila had joined the ACF to help thousands left homeless by the December 2004 tsunami that devastated Sri Lanka's coastlines.

The work later involved humanitarian missions in conflict zones where battles between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and troops displace entire villages.

On Friday last week Romila, and 16 other ACF volunteers were trapped when Muttur came under heavy artillery and mortar fire from Tiger rebels intending to cut military supply links.

It was not clear what happened or who killed them, but the independent Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies which found the bodies said it appeared they were shot at close range.

"She called me up Friday and told me there was heavy fighting and shelling. She wanted to escape but the ACF officers told them to stay put because they will come back for them," Sivapaka, 52, told AFP in between sobs and through an interpreter.

"That was the last I heard from her until I got the news Sunday that her body was found," he said.

"I want to ask the Sri Lankan government what is happening to our country. My daughter only worked to help others. Now because of that she is dead."

In 1998 one of Romila's brothers were also shot and killed, his body left by the roadside in a still unsolved murder case.

"There is a deep pain in my heart but I do not know whom to blame," Sivapaka said.

Muralee Tharan's 27-year-old brother Ampigawathy Jaseelan was with Romila during the attack. He also called to say that they had decided to stay put inside the ACF office in Muttur upon advice from their bosses.

"He called me up and said they were told not to go out. If he had gone out and tried to escape, he may still be alive," Tharan, a public health inspector, said. "We want justice. We demand justice because we are very angry. We want a thorough investigation from the government."

He said ACF should share the blame because "they did not take care of those still left behind."

Nearby, 62-year-old labourer Yogaraja stared through the mortuary window trying to identify the body of his son Kodeswaran, 31.

"I don't know who killed my son. But everyone involved in the fighting should be blamed," Yogaraja said, his eyes bloodshot from crying.

"I just want to get his remains now and give him a decent burial. There is nothing more I can do. He is already dead."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.