Sri Lanka clashes continue as aid workers worry

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 10 (Reuters) Sporadic clashes continued overnight between Sri Lanka's military and Tamil Tiger rebels, the army said today, as aid workers tried to avert a health crisis looming in overcrowded camps.

The government has repeatedly said it will continue an offensive to seize control of a rebel-held water sluice gate after its closure blocked irrigation for thousands of farmers and sparked the first ground fighting since a 2002 truce.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) re-opened the sluice yesterday, but the government say they must also surrender control of the area. They refuse, and have said ongoing army attacks amount to a declaration of war.

''The troops are still consolidating the area around it,'' said an army spokesman. ''There is no heavy fighting.'' But the occasional distant crump of artillery could be heard from the northeastern port of Trincomalee, from where government multi-barrel rockets were again launched overnight.

A policeman was wounded overnight in the northwest Mannar district in a suspected Tiger attack, the army said. As fighting raged south of Trincomalee, hit-and-run attacks in Mannar have increased while the rest of the island has been quiet.

''In addition to forcing the Government of Sri Lanka to choose between war and peace, Tigers have demonstrated their readiness to open multiple battlefronts in other strategic locations of the island to effectively counter the objectives of Sri Lankan military,'' said the pro-rebel website Tamilnet.

Suspected Tiger blasts in the capital Colombo and hill town of Kandy this week killed a senior police officer and wounded a member of a pro-government ethnic Tamil group, and analysts fear more of the same if violence continues.

SICKNESS SPREADS Aid workers say the human cost has already been high, although it will become much worse if the two-decade civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 people escalates to cover more of the north and east, where the Tigers want a separate homeland for minority Tamils.

Tens of thousands fled the battered town of Mutur, heavily damaged by shelling and fighting between the government and Tigers.

Seventeen local aid staff working on tsunami relief were executed, and despite denials some family blame the military.

Most of the mainly Muslim displaced are now living in massively overcrowded temporary camps in the town of Kantale.

Aid agencies say there is not enough room to build toilets and medical staff say sickness is already rising.

At the same time, aid workers say there are around 3,000 people in schools and religious sites around Mutur itself while no international agency has reached Tiger territory, where the rebels say civilians have been hit by days of government bombing and artillery strikes.

''We are just ordinary people,'' 55-year-old fisherman M A Mohamed, one of many who have fled the conflict area and is now living under a bullock cart with four other families in Kantale.

''We just want to get on with our lives. '' REUTERS MS BS0859