http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/04/sri-lankas-silent-horror.html
The seeming inability of international mediators, forums and organizations to control the civilian deaths, damages and genocides is frustrating and painful. For long Sri Lanka has been a battleground and the casualties keep rising. However, there is little and no effort to stem the bloodbath in the island nation. There have been sporadic statements issued by a few Indian Politicians on the war and there is nothingness beyond the empty rhetoric. The action of the armyu and the rebels reek of "Wanton disregard for Human Life", as put by aid agencies. 380 civilians died and more than 1,100 wounded on Sunday during intensive shelling of the combat zone on Sri Lanka’s northeastern coast, a boggy sliver of beachfront where Sri Lankan troops have surrounded Tamil separatist fighters.
“The U.N. has consistently warned against the bloodbath scenario as we’ve watched the steady increase in civilian deaths over the last few months,” Gordon Weiss, the U.N. spokesman in Sri Lanka, said Monday. “The large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend, including the deaths of more than 100 children, shows that that bloodbath has become a reality.”
Concern for civilians trapped in the zone has grown in recent weeks. The area of fighting, which at one time had been set aside by the government as a “no-fire zone,” has shrunk to about 7 square kilometers, or about 2.5 square miles. An estimated 50,000 civilians, mostly Tamils, are thought to be caught there, along with a holdout force of between 200 and 500 fighters.
Some relief groups and the government have assailed the rebels for holding the civilians as human shields. Many of the same agencies and some foreign governments have accused the government of shelling the area — along with the civilians inside — despite pledges to no longer use heavy weapons, artillery or air strikes.
Food, water and shelter are in short supply inside the battle zone, according to accounts from some of those who have escaped the fighting there. An official with a Catholic relief group said Monday that only one field hospital remains in operation, with doctors and medical staff fearful of leaving the bunkers where they live because of periodic shelling by the army. The rebels claim that the army has annihilated 3200 civilians while some relief groups and the government have assailed the rebels for holding the civilians as human shields. Many of the same agencies and some foreign governments have accused the government of shelling the area — along with the civilians inside — despite pledges to no longer use heavy weapons, artillery or air strikes.
Amnesty Internation, Human Rights watch,the International Crisis Group and the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect have pleaded Japan to intervene and raise the Sri Lanka crisis at the Security Council.
The government, in a statement by the Defense Ministry, said Monday that the rebels were “bombarding their own civilians.”“Hopefully, in their calculation, this will attract the foreign countries to throw a lifeline to save their souls,” the statement said. “L.T.T.E. is desperate with the security forces closing on them. Lives of the L.T.T.E. leadership are hanging on a thread. They know they are running out of time.”Independent verification of various charges by the government and the rebels has been impossible because the military has banned journalists from the area around the war zone and from refugee camps.
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