Sri Lanka's "safety zone": 76 children killed within 3 days.

by Tamiya | March 29, 2009 at 09:03 pm

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Sri Lankan Army defined "safety zones" are proving to be detrimental to fleeing Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka.

179 civilians including 76 children killed within 3 days inside 'safety zone'

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2009, 20:34 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) attacks have claimed the lives of 179 civilians within the three days of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the casualty figures collected by TamilNet correspondent in Vanni. At least 76 of the slain victims were children below the age of 15. At least 16 pregnant mothers were among the slain. More than 109 children below the age of 15 have sustained injuries. Around 45% of the thousands of shells fired by the SLA have hit the safety zone. Meanwhile, a foreign staff of the ICRC, who came in the ship on Saturday to transport the wounded civilian had a narrow escape when the ship was hit by long distance gunfire by the SLA damaging a window of the ship. On Friday, a local ICRC worker, P. Satheeskumar, was reportedly injured in SLA shelling.

Tamils civilians are killed hundreds in these so called "safety zones" due to Sri Lankan Army shelling and bombing. Puthumaaththa'lan makeshift hospital is incapable of dealing with the pouring in patients. Couples of doctors and personals are in charge to provide services in the hospital from administration to surgery. The hospital is denied of modern day facilities or required medicines. The Sri Lankan government continues to ignore the request for required drug and anesthesia for this hospital. Due to the lack of facilities, the hospital has disintegrated to using remote methods of medicines to try to save lives.

The Sri Lankan Army continues to shell the hospital and surrounding areas making them a no safe zone endlessly.

Sri Lanka Army (SLA) attacked the makeshift hospital at Puthumaththa'lan with Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) in the early hours of Thursday between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m., killing five patients who were being treated at the Intensive Care Unit and causing injuries to 11 including two medical staff.

An inside into the war zone from Al Jazeera