More UN officials seek Lanka truce as kids' toll rises

United Nations, Aug 16: Denouncing a bombing that killed dozens of children and wounded many more in Sri Lanka, two senior UN officials added their voice to growing international calls for the government and separatist rebels to lay down their arms and resume talks.

Statements deploring the violence by the head of the UN Children's Fund and the senior UN official dealing with children and armed conflict came one day after Secretary-General Kofi Annan raised an alarm about intensifying violence in Sri Lanka, including the weekend assassination of Ketheshwaran Loganathan, the deputy secretary-general of the government Peace Secretariat and veteran Tamil human rights advocate.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann M Veneman yesterday called on both the government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to ''respect international humanitarian law and ensure children and the places where they live, study and play are protected from harm.'' According to news reports, as many as 40 adolescent girls were killed and some 100 children were wounded, many critically, when a compound in Vallipunam in the northern part of the country was bombed. Girls from various schools were staying overnight at the compound, attending a two-day course in first-aid.

UNICEF staff from a nearby office immediately visited the area to assess the situation and provide counselling services to those in need.

''The latest shocking developments in Sri Lanka once again show that children continue to bear the brunt of this conflict,'' said the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, calling upon the parties to cease hostilities and return to the negotiating table.

The LTTE continues to recruit children and use them in their fighting forces on the battlefield, she said in a statement released in New York.

Echoing Mr Annan's remarks yesterday, Ms Coomaraswamy voiced support for the Co-Chairs of the ''Tokyo process'' - the European Union, the United States, Norway and Japan - and reminding the parties that there is no military solution to this conflict.

''They should work toward reinstating the peace process to protect their people, especially children, from further hardship,'' she said.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that continued heavy fighting in the north and east of Sri Lanka has sent several thousand more civilians fleeing their homes in search of safety.

UNHCR is having difficulty helping refugees in the area, because freedom of movement is heavily restricted in many areas, complicating the agency's efforts to deliver much-needed aid to civilians.

Since April, more than 128,800 people have been newly displaced within Sri Lanka, including more than 50,000 who fled since the flare-up of violence in Muttur and its surrounding areas in Trincomalee District in early August. A further 6,600 Sri Lankans have fled across the border to Tamil Nadu in India since the beginning of the year.

UNI

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