SL seeks aid for displaced

COLOMBO – Sri Lanka pleaded for international help yesterday in what it called an ’emergency humanitarian situation,’ after a medical relief group warned that civilian casualties are rising rapidly in the country’s war zone despite the exodus of more than 100 000 in recent days.

Red Cross spokeswomen Sarasi Wijeratne said 350 wounded and their accompanying relatives were evacuated by the Red Cross to a hospital outside the war zone on Wednesday. Another evacuation took place yesterday.
Earlier, she estimated that 1 000 people in the conflict zone were badly wounded and in desperate need of treatment.
Only two ill-equipped makeshift hospitals function in the tiny zone. Dr. Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, who works there, said his staff is struggling with a shortage of medicine as wounded patients continue to flood the hospitals despite the evacuations.
He said 15 people were killed yesterday when shells hit a Roman Catholic church, wounding a priest whose leg was amputated. Another priest was wounded in shelling on Wednesday.
Both the government and the rebels deny targeting civilians, but the UN estimates more than 4 500 have been killed the past three months.
The Security Council expressed concern on Wednesday at the plight of the civilians trapped in the tiny coastal strip still controlled by the Tamil Tigers. The council and asked the rebels to lay down their arms, renounce terrorism and join talks to end the nation’s 25-year civil war.
It also urged the government to allow international agencies access to those affected by the fighting.
But despite its calls for help caring for those fleeing, the government did not say if it would let aid groups into the war zone. Since September, only the International Committee of the Red Cross has had access.
Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama did say, however, that the government was working to grant more access to those who had left the constantly shrinking strip of land – which now measures just 12 square kilometres and it says it packed with 15 000 to 20 000 civilians.
It says 102 790 civilians escaped the conflict zone so far this week.
The rebels have been fighting to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have faced decades of marginalization by successive governments controlled by ethnic Sinhalese. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the violence.
– Nampa-AP