HUNDREDS OF civilians have been killed or injured in the Sri Lankan army’s attempt to wipe out the remaining Tamil Tiger fighters cornered in the narrow coastal enclave designated as a no-fire zone, the Red Cross said yesterday.
Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped inside the zone as the fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) intensifies.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its staff inside the zone had reported mounting civilian casualties. “It is difficult to pinpoint an exact number, but certainly hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded as a result of the ongoing fighting,” said Sarasi Wijeratne, the ICRC spokeswoman in Colombo.
Tamil sources claimed as many as 1,000 died in the initial advance into the no-fire zone on Monday, but the ICRC figure is the first independent confirmation of the growing number of civilians killed or injured in the fighting.
“What we are seeing is intense fighting. We are particularly concerned about the use of weapons such as artillery,” said Ms Wijeratne.
The rebels are understood to be resisting the army’s advance from positions among the tightly packed shelters where the remaining civilians have sought refuge, but the Sri Lankan military said last night it had pushed through to the beach, splitting the no-fire zone into two sectors.
It described a 1km-long queue of civilians waiting to get out of the zone. The reports were impossible to verify because independent media are barred from the area.
A report on the ministry of defence website said that troops had attacked the Sea Tigers base in Puttumatalan and had also captured the village’s hospital.
The US state department released satellite imagery on Tuesday night which appeared to show tens of thousands of civilians squeezed into the last small strip of land controlled by the Tamil Tiger rebels. It said the image showed about 25,000 tents packed into a coastal strip of about 21 sq km (eight sq miles).
Based on the number of tents, it estimated about 125,000 people were in the conflict zone before about 60,000 civilians escaped during the last two days, after the Sri Lankan military breached a major LTTE defensive position on Monday morning. UN officials also estimated yesterday that as many as 60,000 people remained inside the zone.
The Sri Lankan government had set a deadline of noon on Tuesday for the rebels to surrender. But the deadline passed without a response from the LTTE leadership.
The Sri Lankan military denied the ICRC claims of large numbers of civilian deaths and injuries. Brig Udaya Nanayakkara, the army spokesman, said: "It is not true that the figures are that big. There may have been a couple of civilians killed because of the action of the LTTE." – ( Guardianservice)