'300,000 civilians at risk in Sri Lanka'

'300,000 civilians at risk in Sri Lanka' (Monday 26 January 2009)

CRISIS: People mourning the deaths of relatives. Sri Lanka is worried about the 300,000 civilians who are trapped in the jungle.

AID groups in Sri Lanka expressed "serious concern" on Monday over the plight of 300,000 civilians trapped in the last patch of jungle under Tamil Tiger control.

On Sunday, the military drove Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighters from their last major stronghold, the coastal town of Mullaittivu.

The rebels and hundreds of thousands of war refugees are now squeezed into a 115-square-mile area in the jungle.

United Nations Children's Fund representative Philippe Duamelle said: "We are very concerned for their safety.

"They are close to the fighting and have poor access to health care and shelter, as well as proper water and sanitation."

Jesuit Relief Service international director Peter Balleis described the situation as a second Gaza in the making.

He said: "Around 300,000 people, that is, two-thirds of the civilian population, have been forced out of their homes and are living in camps in areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers.

"They are crowded together in temporary shelters, surrounded by mud, with no promise of regular access to food or adequate sanitation."

The Sri Lankan Defence Ministry claimed in a statement on its website that the LTTE have laid a swathe of land mines in densely populated rebel-held areas "to prevent the civilians fleeing to the government-controlled areas.''

UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs John Holmes has called on the LTTE to allow the civilians to move to safety.

Food and other supplies have been transported to the civilians by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), the only international agency with a permanent presence in areas still under LTTE control.

"Because of ongoing combat operations and the moving front line, tens of thousands of displaced civilians are concentrated in an area so small that there are serious concerns for their physical safety and living conditions, in particular in terms of hygiene,'' the ICRC said.

Limited information is available on the casualties suffered by the civilians, due to access restrictions into the areas of heavy fighting.

But a government official admitted that at least 100 civilians had been killed in artillery exchanges last week.