Sri Lanka reinforces troops, aid workers flee

Colombo, Aug 18: Sri Lanka sent additional troops to the northern front lines in its fight with Tamil Tiger guerrillas, as some aid workers pulled back today to escape ever closer artillery fire.

Almost three weeks of the first ground fighting with Tiger rebels since a 2002 ceasefire has left the northern government-held Jaffna enclave largely cut off and areas near the port of Trincomalee under intermittent artillery fire.

The army said today the night was unusually quiet but there was ''light'' artillery fire and fleeting attacks, blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, behind army lines.

Aid workers say columns of troops and vehicles have been moving up to Trincomalee, just north of where fighting initially began around a rebel-held water supply. It was not clear if they would be used in the area or taken by ship towards Jaffna, where the army says more than 100 soldiers died this week.

The European Union and United States yesterday urged the government and the LTTE to stop the fighting.

The EU and the US will discuss the worsening conflict with other key donor Japan and mediator Norway in Brussels before mid-September, officials said.

''We'll need to assess the deteriorating state of the ceasefire,'' a western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

Few diplomats believe either side can really win another round in a two-decade civil war. Despite heavy fighting, the front line has barely moved and in Jaffna the two sides are stuck in an almost World War One style battle across no-man's land.

With artillery fire gradually getting closer, aid workers say helping the war and disaster-hit in northern and eastern Sri Lanka has become increasingly hard.

Some international agencies -- as well as unarmed Nordic ceasefire monitors -- are moving their staff south out of Trincomalee after artillery fire came down within a couple of miles of the beachfront hotels where many were staying.

After 17 mainly Tamil staff from Paris-based aid group Action Contre La Faim were executed after fighting south of Trincomalee, few want to take chances. It was the worst attack on aid staff since a 2003 bomb attack on the United Nations in Baghdad.

Tens of thousands of war and victims of the 2004 tsunami were still in rough camps and settlements even before ground fighting began. In the last three weeks, observers say several hundred civilians have likely died and more than 100,000 people displaced.

''We are able to reach people in the camps,'' said Mahbub Alam, head of the UN World Food Programme in north and east Sri Lanka. ''But we cannot get into uncleared areas. Our assessment teams are simply unable to go there,'' he said referring to rebel-held territory.

Reuters

Related Stories

Prevent civil war in Lanka, CPM tells UPA
In Focus: Sri Lanka Crisis