THE UNITED Nations yesterday evacuated hundreds of severely wounded civilians, mostly Tamils, from behind rebel lines in northern Sri Lanka as the army battled to secure final victory over Tamil Tiger separatists in south Asia’s longest-running civil war.
“About 350 critically wounded civilians, including 50 children, crossed the front lines,” UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said. The rescue efforts resulted from lengthy negotiations with retreating Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres fighting in the thickly-forested Mullaittivu district.
The convoy of ambulances carrying the wounded had, for days, been trapped behind Tiger front lines with the rebels refusing it permission to leave.
Both sides traded blame for causing civilian casualties with the Tigers claiming on their website that the army was shelling the “no-fire” zone it had demarcated last week.
The military, for its part, denied violating this area and accused the LTTE of moving its artillery into populated areas and of using civilians as shields and as a bargaining chip to force a ceasefire.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said fighting between Sri Lankan troops and the LTTE over the past three months had left an estimated 250,000 non-combatants stranded and urged both warring sides to prevent the loss of innocent lives.
International humanitarian agencies warned that many may have been killed or wounded as fighting intensified over the last few days.
Yesterday Sri Lanka’s president pledged safe passage for the thousands trapped by the fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels. “I urge the LTTE within the next 48 hours to allow free movement of civilians to ensure their safety and security. For all those civilians, I assure a safe passage to a secure environment,” President Rajapaksa said.
Humanitarian agencies said services were limited as fighting had seriously depreciated the supply of food aid and medical supplies and exacerbated the already dire shelter, water and sanitation conditions. “The situation for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable civilians trapped in the Wanni war zone is becoming increasingly dangerous,” Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch in New York said referring to the island’s northern jungles where most of the recent fighting has been concentrated.
The UN, EU, Canada and India have also made similar appeals to protect the safety of civilians while the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that a “major humanitarian crisis” was unfolding on the island.
The territory controlled by the LTTE, waging war for 25 years for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamil’s has been shrinking since mid-2007 with the guerrillas losing their last urban centre when the military seized Mullaittivu town, 350km north of the capital Colombo at the weekend.
Claiming discrimination of Tamils at the hands of the Sinhalese majority, the LTTE had for years controlled vast areas in northern and eastern Sri Lanka where it managed its own administration including police, judicial and revenue services. But a determined effort by the army backed by the air force and navy had resulted in a series of LTTE defeats, leaving government troops battling to capture 30km of coastline north of Mullaittivu.