The UN’s humanitarian chief was due in Sri Lanka yesterday as international concern over civilians trapped in the island’s warzone fueled a White House call for an immediate ceasefire.
John Holmes’ three-day mission would focus on pushing the government to facilitate humanitarian missions in and around the conflict zone and to allow proper access to tens of thousands of displaced civilians, the UN said.
The plight and suffering of those caught in the fighting between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels prompted US President Barack Obama’s administration on Friday to urge an end to hostilities.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“We call on both sides to stop fighting immediately and allow civilians to safely leave the combat zone,” the White House said in a statement.
The Sri Lankan government has so far resisted all calls to halt an offensive that is now on the brink of wiping out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, who have been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland since 1972.
The Tigers, once one of the most feared guerrilla organizations in the world, have seen their territory shrink to a sliver of land on the northeast coast estimated to measure 10km².
The White House specifically demanded an end to any military shelling in a designated “safe zone” and access for aid groups and journalists to civilians who have escaped.
A British surgeon working for Medecins Sans Frontieres, Paul McMasters, said his team in the state-run hospital in Vavuniya, near the conflict zone, had been overwhelmed by the influx of injured civilians.
“It’s so crowded that the nurses cannot physically walk around the ward,” he said, estimating the number of patients in a 45-bed ward at around 320.
“There are simply too many people to treat them all. We are not able to save some people because we need to provide more aftercare,” he said.
“There are simply not enough nurses,” he added.
The LTTE issued their own call for foreign intervention, warning of “imminent” starvation among civilians and even suggesting that the situation could deteriorate into a crisis as appalling as that in the Darfur region of Sudan.
It is not clear how many people are trapped in the small rebel-held area. The UN has estimated 50,000, while the government says 15,000 to 20,000 and the Tigers insist the real figure is 165,000.
UN figures released on Friday showed that Sri Lanka’s civil war was killing civilians in greater numbers than the Gaza conflict earlier this year, indicating that almost 6,500 ethnic Tamils had been killed in the last three months.
Two UN officials privately confirmed that 6,432 civilians had died, with 14,000 injured, since the end of January. At least 2,000 people are understood to have been killed in the last month but the death toll does not include those killed in this week’s intense fighting.
The UN has declined to publicly release its casualty figures, but the numbers indicate that, with 500 dying every week, the toll is heavier than it was in Gaza, where a three-week conflict left 1,400 dead. The Sri Lankan government has faced far weaker international censure for its offensive against the Tamil Tigers than Israel did for its war in Gaza.
Colombo denies allegations — supported by credible witness evidence from aid agencies and Tamil civilians — that hundreds of innocent people have been killed by the army in heavy shelling.
The government insists soldiers are only lightly armed and are trying to rescue trapped people. In the propaganda war that has accompanied the crisis the Tamil Tigers have also denied allegations that they were holding civilians hostage as human shields.
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