SRI LANKA: Sri Lankan Separatists Ignore Surrender Deadline

By Mark McDonald, The New York Times

HONG KONG — Tamil separatist fighters on Tuesday ignored a surrender ultimatum by the Sri Lankan government, heightening concerns for tens of thousands of civilians unable to flee a crumbling safe haven that has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days.

The government said some 9,000 civilians fled the so-called no-fire zone on Tuesday, joining about 30,000 who escaped Monday when soldiers broke through earthen defenses built by the Tamil Tiger fighters.

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SRI LANKA: Day of Reckoning in Sri Lanka

By Robert Templer, International Crisis Group

A mass slaughter of civilians will take place Tuesday at noon. And everyone knows it.

The Sri Lankan government has issued a deadline of noon tomorrow for the Tamil Tigers to surrender. With the embattled rebels unlikely to put down their guns before then, only forceful and immediate international action to halt the fighting can prevent the possible deaths of tens of thousands of civilians trapped between the warring parties.

More than 100,000 men, women and children are trapped in a space roughly the size of Central Park, caught up in a war between the Sri Lankan government and the remaining forces of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers. Cornered in a shrinking patch of coast in the Northeast of Sri Lanka, with little access to food, water or medicine the past three months, the civilians have remained out of the sight of most of the world. U.N. and humanitarian workers were forced by the government to leave LTTE areas last September; journalists have also been banned from witnessing the unfolding horror.

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SRI LANKA: Sri Lankan troops attack rebel defenses

By Ravi Nessman, Associated Press

Sri Lankan troops backed by helicopter gunships attacked Tamil Tiger defenses in the northeast Thursday, a rebel-allied Web site reported, as international pressure grew for a new cease-fire to allow civilians to escape the fighting.

The government, which has surrounded the rebels along with tens of thousands of civilians in a sliver of land along the northeast coast, has vowed to crush the Tamil Tigers and end this Indian Ocean island nation’s quarter century civil war.

The military initially denied launching new attacks on the rebels after its two-day unilateral cease-fire expired Wednesday, but the Ministry of Defense later posted a statement on its Web site announcing it had resumed the offensive and killed at least 19 rebels. There was no explanation for the government’s conflicting reports.

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SRI LANKA: Sri Lanka rejects UN call for ceasefire in war against Tamil Tigers

By The Guardian

Sri Lanka today rejected a call by the UN for a ceasefire in its military campaign against the Tamil Tigers, insisting it would not be trapped into letting the group’s leaders escape.

Rebels belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have taken refuge in a tiny enclave measuring less than eight square miles, alongside tens of thousands of civilians who are unable to leave.

Sri Lanka has accused the Tigers of using the civilians as human shields and claims they are being prevented from leaving. Aid agency officials say many civilians, including children, have been killed by the LTTE while trying to escape.

Yesterday a senior UN human rights official warned of a bloodbath unless tens of thousands of civilians are allowed to leave the war zone. Walter Kaelin, the representative of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on the human rights of internally displaced persons, said: “If the Sri Lankan army would try to go into there, if the LTTE would not be ready to let these civilians go, then we’ll end up with a bloodbath, and this must by all means be avoided.”

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SRI LANKA: What will end game of Sri Lanka’s war mean for civilians?

By Nita Bhalla, Reuters News

A woman walks near barbed wire at an internally displaced camp set up in Vavuniya for Tamils who have escaped the war zone.

Sri Lanka’s government says its 25-year war is nearing its conclusion as troops close in on Tamil Tiger rebels cornered in a tiny patch of land on the northeast coast. Aid agencies are warning of possibly dire humanitarian consequences for tens of thousands of civilians trapped with the Tigers in the shrinking war zone. And even after the conflict is over, the fate of civilians remains a serious concern. Here are some questions and answers about the fate of civilians caught up in Asia’s longest-running war:

HOW MANY CIVILIANS ARE AFFECTED? According to the United Nations and Red Cross, about 150,000 civilians are trapped inside the rapidly shrinking “no-fire zone”, a strip of land just 7 km long and 2 km wide (4 miles by 1.2 miles) along the northeastern coast. The government says that there are less than 100,000 there. The United Nations and rights groups say the Tigers have held people as human shields or conscripts. Some civilians who have managed to flee the no-fire zone report being fired on by the rebels or seeing friends and relatives forcibly recruited to fight. The U.N. and rights groups also say the government has shelled the densely packed no-fire zone, which the government denies as Tiger propaganda. Aid workers estimate about 5,000 civilians have managed to escape in the past two weeks, joining around 65,000 people who are being held in government-controlled camps.

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