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April 2009
Heavy fighting erupted again today in the narrow coastal strip in northern Sri Lanka where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped, the day after the government in Colombo announced it was ending the use of heavy weapons.
150,000 people believed to be caught in conflict area Call to suspend fighting is a gimmick, claim ministers
Her supporters hand-feed her cake, she covers herself in diamonds and has a fleet of planes. Yet, as a Dalit, an 'untouchable', she is loved by India's legions of poor and could even be prime minister after the general election
Children as young as 12 are being given guns and forced to fight on the frontline alongside desperate Tamil Tiger rebels cornered inside Sri Lanka's no-fire zone, the UN said today. Those forcibly recruited included the 16-year-old daughter of a member of the UN staff, who had stayed inside the narrow strip of coast where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are making their last stand.
The United Nations says nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed and 14,000 wounded in fighting in Sri Lanka over the last three months, according to a UN document circulated among diplomatic missions.
Desperate Tamil civilians are trying to flee to India in small boats to escape intensifying fighting between the Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tigers.
Cluster bombs and artillery shelling have killed many civilians at a makeshift hospital within the last strip of Sri Lanka's coastline still controlled by the Tamil Tigers, a doctor said today.
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 strip of coastline designated as a no-fire zone, the Red Cross said yesterday.
Unicef said today it faced a "human avalanche" of destitute people in Sri Lanka as the country's military entered an established no-fire zone and freed 3,000 civilians trapped between the army and Tamil Tiger rebels
Tens of thousands of civilians trapped by fighting in Sri Lanka fled to safety today after the military smashed through one of the Tamil Tigers' last major defensive lines. Video footage released by the Sri Lankan defence ministry showed civilians pouring through a breach in an earth barrier which the rebels had been using to hold back the military onslaught.
Thousands of civilians fleeing fighting in Sri Lanka have been interned by the government in cramped, makeshift camps with overflowing drains, water shortages and the threat of disease looming large in the sweltering, unsanitary conditions.
THE shell exploded without warning. Kandiah Rasamahendran felt a searing pain in his left leg and looked down, to see blood gushing from the wound.
Tamil civilians slaughtered as army shells 'no-fire zone', The Observer, April 19, 2009 Hundreds of civilians are being killed or seriously injured in artillery and gun attacks as the Sri Lankan army attempts to finish off the last Tamil Tiger rebels trapped in a shrinking pocket of land.
By the time Arulmathy and her fellow Tamil Tigers realised they were surrounded, it was too late. They had fallen asleep and now Sri Lankan soldiers were swarming into their bunker. Arulmathy watched aghast as 75 women she had fought beside for so many months reached for their hand grenades, pulled the pins and blew themselves to pieces, as they had been ordered to do.
At least 128 civilians have died and more than 700 have been injured in three days of shelling in the last remaining pocket of Tamil Tiger resistance in Sri Lanka, according to reports from inside the "no-fire zone".
AT least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 injured yesterday when a hospital in the last area of Sri Lanka held by the Tamil Tigers was shelled in what one doctor described as the worst day of bloodshed since the start of the military campaign.
Sri Lanka yesterday 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.
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