A group of Sri Lankan doctors who have been in police custody for nearly two months were brought before the media to recant their reports of mass civilian casualties during the final days of the civil war.

The United Nations condemned both sides in Sri Lanka’s war zone today after artillery shells tore through a hospital packed with civilians for a second day, killing at least 50, setting an ambulance ablaze and forcing medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety.

At least 15 people were killed when a hospital in Sri Lanka’s war zone was hit by two shells today, a doctor said.

Two days of shelling in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone killed at least 430 civilians – and probably as many as 1,000 – a government doctor said today.

AN overnight artillery barrage in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone killed at least 378 civilians and wounded more than 1,100, a government doctor said yesterday, calling it the bloodiest day he had seen in the army’s offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels.