British tourists return home after airport ordeal

British holidaymakers caught up in a terrifying rebel mortar and gunfire attack on Sri Lanka’s main airport were today preparing to return home.

Forty-seven British people were forced to flee the airport after Tamil Tiger guerrillas launched a pre-dawn assault.

Holidaymakers trapped in the line of fire ducked bullets before scrambling into a ditch to escape the separatists.

Brothers Jimmy and Steven Bellieni and their wives were on a double honeymoon when they became caught up in the attack.

Jimmy, 36, a carpenter from Holland Park, west London, was separated from his 36-year-old pregnant wife Candace and children Lola, three, and Leilani, nine, in the mayhem.

He told how he saw aircraft ablaze and described the ordeal as ‘‘like something out of Sarajevo’’.

He said of crouching in the ditch: ‘‘At one point I poked my head up to see if I could get out and there was just silhouettes, flash fire, and a burning airport in the background.’’

His brother Steven, 34, married long-term girlfriend Martina, 28, on the trip.

Cafe manager Martina, from Balham, south London, said: ‘‘It took us 12 hours to locate Candace and the children. It was terrifying. Afterwards we all just hugged each other and cried.’’

She said airport staff failed to evacuate the building and terrified tourists were forced out into the open and into the line of fire by the military.

‘‘They came along and put us in a tunnel under the airport. The attacks were going off over our heads. We knew we needed to get out,’’ she said.

‘‘But then the military started shouting ‘Run, run, go for cover’. They sent us in the direction the bullets were coming from.

‘‘People were diving on the floor. There was no cover apart from an old cafe bar. We were running out in the open air. It was about 3am in the morning and pitch black.’’

The group of 15 friends and relatives was forced to leave the cafe after the rebels began firing at it.

They dived into a ditch for cover then trekked in pouring rain for nearly two hours to reach Colombo before they were given a lift to the British Embassy by a passer-by.

Scott and Leigh-Anne Murray, of Elgin, Moray, were caught up in the fighting shortly after landing at the airport following a flight from the Maldives.

The couple were due to transfer to a flight to Heathrow but instead found themselves fleeing from the airport building as the plane which had flown them to Sri Lanka was blown up on the runway.

Speaking from a hotel at the airport, Mr Murray said: ‘‘We were told to evacuate the building and we just had to make a run for it. It was very frightening.

‘‘We got stuck behind a fence which we had to pull down and there was gunfire coming over our heads.’’

Sean Hill, from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, was also caught up in the troubles and said the airport was in a blind panic.

The attack came on the anniversary of riots in 1983 in which mobs of Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority killed 2,000 to 3,000 of the minority Tamils.

The violence is regarded as the start of the 18-year war between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who are fighting for a separate Tamil state.

After six hours of explosions, automatic weapons fire and pistol shots at the airport, police said all nine guerrillas were dead, and three had blown themselves up. Five military personnel also died in the airport battle.

Officials said rebels damaged eight military and five passenger aircraft, including three Sri Lankan airbuses which were set alight.

It is understood that the rebels’ primary target was not the airport, but an adjacent military air base, home to some newly-acquired military aircraft.

The airport was due to reopen today but the Foreign Office is currently advising those travelling to the country to consider postponing their visits for the time being.