Sri Lanka Update

An article by Frank    No Comments

This just appeared in the Guardian UK:

Hundreds of civilians are being killed or seriously injured in artillery and gun attacks as the Sri Lankan army attempts to finish off the last Tamil Tiger rebels trapped in a shrinking pocket of land.

Injured civilians lucky enough to get out have told of carnage in this so-called “no-fire zone” – a 17 sq km strip of coast where the Tigers are penned in with their backs to the sea.

Horrific stories of limbs ripped off by shellfire and bodies buried where they fell are emerging, despite the government’s efforts to hide the scale of the killing by confining the injured to hospitals in a military area around the government-declared no-fire zone, from which the media are strictly excluded.

The casualties’ graphic accounts of a fierce onslaught on the no-fire zone, supported by the evidence of their severe wounds, have been reported by doctors who have treated them at a field hospital at Pulmoddai, inside the military area, where thousands of evacuees have been taken by ship. According to the senior doctor handling the casualties for the Sri Lankan government as they arrive at Pulmoddai, shells are falling among the tightly packed tents and shelters that are home to tens of thousands of civilians, killing and wounding dozens every day.

“Most of the people have shell blast injuries and gunshot injuries. Some people have lost their limbs, other people have lost other parts of the body, some people have wounds in the abdomen, some in the chest,” said Gnana Gunalan, a doctor who treats the flood of casualties as they arrive by Red Cross ship. – Click here for the full story.

This week I will be doing my best to get some information from our partner in Sri Lanka. If you would like to support TEAR Fund’s work with reconciliation initiatives in Sri Lanka, call us on 0800 800 777.

The following is a news article on the situation from Al Jazeera English: