Fears hundreds of civilians killed in Sri Lanka war

INTERNATIONAL truce monitors have warned it is likely hundreds of civilians have been killed so far this month in Sri Lanka’s worst violence since a 2002 ceasefire.

Yesterday, the military said Tamil Tiger rebels launched a new attack on the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula yesterday. The military said the Tigers had attacked with assault boats and infantry but had been repulsed and 100 rebels were killed.

Analysts say the ceasefire appears dead and that a civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 has resumed. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils.

“If there is no success ... getting the two parties back to the ceasefire, we will see a long military struggle where, as is usual in this island, no one will win,” the chief truce monitor, retired Swedish Major General Ulf Henricsson, told Reuters at his Colombo headquarters.

The military said 106 of its soldiers had died in battle in the past week in Jaffna.

There is now no access to the area and phone lines are down. Diplomats are sceptical about claims by both sides, suspecting they talk down their own casualties and exaggerate enemy deaths.

The rising violence in recent days, including a suspected Tiger blast in the capital on Monday that killed seven, is worrying investors and scaring away tourists. South Africa’s cricket team abandoned a one-day tournament in Sri Lanka over security worries.

More than 800 people had died this year even before ground fighting began in the northeastern district of Trincomalee in late July after rebels shut a canal sluice gate, cutting off water supplies to farms in government-held territory.

“The LTTE’s objective does not seem to be to capture Jaffna,” said Janes’ Defense Weekly analyst Iqbal Athas. “They don’t have the conventional forces. Their objective is to besiege Jaffna and grind down the military.”