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.

A MORTAR shell struck the only functioning medical facility in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone yesterday, throwing bloody bodies into the dirt outside and killing 49 people, a government health official said. It was the second time this month the hospital was hit.

Forty-nine patients were killed in a shelling attack on a hospital in Sri Lanka’s war zone today, a health official said.

At least 10 civilians were killed and dozens of others wounded in artillery fire inside a Sri Lankan government-designated “safe zone”, a health official said today.