UN staff and hospital under fire in Sri Lanka
[IHT]
A glimpse of the hellish fate of civilians stuck in the epicenter of Sri Lanka’s war emerged this week, as the United Nations confirmed that staff members and their families had come under heavy shelling in what the government told them was a no-fire zone, and a government health official, also behind the front line, described artillery attacks on a hospital compound. For several weeks, fighting has intensified between government troops and rebels of an ethnic separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also called the Tamil Tigers. The battles have pushed civilians living in rebel-held areas steadily into an ever-shrinking corner of northeastern Sri Lanka.