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It’s a no-holds-barred battle in Sri Lanka

PHOTO: AFP

FLight TO SAFETY: Tamil civilians who escaped from the clutches of the LTTE arrive in the government-held zone in Mullaithivu, in this photo released by the Sri Lankan Army on Friday. Colombo has vowed to finish off the Tamil Tigers in 48 hours.

FROM INSIDE WAR ZONE: It is a continuous buzz of explosions in and around the New-Safety Zone (NSZ) as the military and the Tigers engage in a no-holds-barred battle. The former is engaged in the combat in its declared pursuit to rescue the civilians and the latter to save the top brass of the LTTE at any cost.

The civilians caught in the crossfire are undoubtedly the worst hit. The precious belongings of the civilians, which they lugged each time they got displaced after the military kept pushing the Tigers deeper into the Wanni in the last two years, lie scattered amid debris of shells, bullets in the zone that has witnessed some intense fighting.

Burnt vehicles, broken television sets, refrigerators, silk saris torn to pieces and used to make sand bags for the innumerable bunkers dot the landscape as one drives through the war zone.

A statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the only organisation operating in the battle zone, best reflects the situation. “In north-eastern Sri Lanka, hundreds of seriously wounded or ill patients blocked in the conflict area have been waiting in vain for several days for desperately needed medical care. For the third consecutive day, a ferry chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and anchoring only a few kilometres away from the patients has been unable to evacuate them because of continuous heavy fighting.”

“Our staff is witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe,” said ICRC’s director of operations, Pierre Krähenbühl, from its headquarters in Geneva on Friday. “Despite high-level assurances, the lack of security on the ground means that our sea operations continue to be stalled, and this is unacceptable,” he added. “No humanitarian organisation can help them in the current circumstances. People are left to their own devices.”

Thousands of people remain trapped in a small area along the coast within the conflict zone. As fighting goes on unabated, civilians are forced to seek protection in hand-dug bunkers, making it even more difficult to fetch scarce drinking water and food.

An ICRC ferry, the Green Ocean, is carrying 25 metric tonnes of urgently needed food. The last time the ICRC could offload food and medical supplies and evacuate patients was last Saturday. In addition to the ferry, a cargo ship, the Oriental Princess, carrying another 500 metric tonnes of food from the World Food Program, is waiting off the coast north of Mullaithivu, ready to deliver the food to civilians.

“We need security and unimpeded access now in order to save hundreds of lives,” said Mr. Krähenbühl. “The ICRC stands ready to carry out its humanitarian work as soon as conditions permit.”

Meanwhile, inside the war zone three teenage child soldiers surrendered to the troops. The teenagers mingled with civilians who were about to cross into cleared areas and waited patiently until the right opportunity arrived.

In another development, High Commissioner Alok Prasad handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross Delegation in Colombo a consignment of 50,000 individually-packed family packets of humanitarian relief material intended for the internally displaced persons affected by the conflict.

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It’s a no-holds-barred battle in Sri Lanka

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