22nd April 2009
Young boy was evacuated to the hospital in northern sri lanka after fleeing from an area still controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the No Fire Zone.Hundreds of civilians have been killed or injured as the Sri Lankan army attempts to wipe out the remaining Tamil Tiger fighters, the Red Cross said today.
The Tigers are cornered in the narrow strip of coastline still held by the rebels.Thousands more Tamil civilians were fleeing the rebel-held land in north-east Sri Lanka today as government troops continued their mission to capture the Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
Tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped inside the area by intense fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its staff inside the zone had reported mounting civilian casualties as a result of the current fighting.
"It is difficult to pinpoint an exact number but certainly hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded as a result of the ongoing fighting," said Sarasi Wijeratne, the ICRC spokeswoman in Colombo.Tamil sources claimed as many as 1,000 people died in the initial advance into the no-fire zone on Monday, but the ICRC figure is the first independent confirmation of the scale of the humanitarian cost of the operation.
"What we are seeing is intense fighting. We are particularly concerned about the use of weapons such as artillery," said Wijeratne.She called on both sides to remember their obligations under international humanitarian law to minimise civilian casualties.
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