UN to send humanatarian team to Sri Lanka

BRUSSELS, April 23 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on Thursday he was concerned about the situation in Sri Lanka and was sending a humanitarian team to a "no-fire zone" where civilians are trapped.

He urged all sides to respect a U.N. Security Council appeal on Wednesday which also expressed concern about the humanitarian situation and the plight of civilians.

"I am most concerned at the rapidly deteriorating situation in Sri Lanka," Ban told a news conference in Brussels after attending an international donors conference on Somalia.

"I intend to immediately dispatch a U.N. humanitarian team to the no-fire zone. The purpose of this humanitarian team would be to first of all monitor the situation and support humanitarian assistance and try to do whatever we can to protect the civilian population who are caught in the fire zone."

He said the U.N. team must be allowed into the no-fire zone as quickly as possible and asked for strong support and speedy assistance from the government.

Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped in rebel territory in the no-fire zone in northern Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka on Friday flatly rejected a plan by the United Nations to send a special humanitarian mission to the island's war-torn north.

"There is no need for the U.N. to send people from abroad to visit those areas," Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told reporters, a day after U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon announced a team would be sent to Sri Lanka