Sri Lanka denies civilian crisis
[BBC] Sri Lanka’s government has denied Red Cross and UN reports of a major humanitarian crisis in the north, where troops are fighting Tamil Tiger rebels. Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa told the BBC that he had a policy of “zero” civilian casualties. The Red Cross believes that hundreds of civilians have been killed and hundreds…
Read MoreUN: staff came under fire in Sri Lanka ‘safe zone’
[ AP ] Dozens of U.N. workers and their relatives spent a terrifying night huddling in hastily built bunkers as artillery fire pounded a civilian “safe zone” in Sri Lanka’s war-wracked north, according to an internal U.N. memo. The memo, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, said the artillery shells killed nine civilians in a…
Read MoreEnd Sri Lanka killings – UK
[BBC Sinhala] Sri Lanka should aspire for a political solution that safeguards the rights of the Tamil community, British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has said. Both Mr. Miliband and his deputy, Lord Mark Malloch-Brown reiterated British government’s serious concerns of the plight of the civilians caught in the conflict in Sri Lanka’s north. “We are…
Read MoreIndia’s dilemma in Sri Lanka
[BBC] Any military victory in the civil war in Sri Lanka will almost certainly see pressure for the re-emergence of India in contributing to a settlement. Since the emergence of full-blooded Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, the two neighbours have circled each other in an uncertain diplomatic tango, sometimes seeing eye to…
Read MoreSri Lankan official says army shelled hospital
[AP] COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Three artillery barrages struck a hospital in Sri Lanka’s chaotic war zone, slamming into its pediatrics ward and its women’s wing and killing many patients, the region’s top health official and international aid groups said. Dr. Thurairajah Varatharajah said the shells in one of the attacks Sunday appeared to have been…
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