Expats evacuated from north Lanka,fresh fighting

TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka, Aug 27: The first foreign nationals and aid workers to be evacuated from Sri Lanka's besieged north sailed into this eastern port on Sunday, only to be met by volleys of rockets and artillery amid fresh fighting.

Military sources said the army had begun a limited operation targeting rebel positions near the Tiger-held town of Sampur, and said some soldiers had been injured.

Reuters correspondents in nearby Trincomalee saw flashes on the horizon as rockets exploded.

Dragging suitcases and belongings behind them as they disembarked from a Red Cross-chartered passenger ferry, dozens of evacuees told of fear and frustration at the fighting and curfews in the northern Jaffna peninsula as a new episode in the island's two-decade civil war rages.

Seventeen-year-old high school student Renu Jeyapala from Toronto was paying her first visit to her parents' native Jaffna.

''I never knew that it was this bad here. My mum came after 18 years to visit her family. We were here for two weeks and it was OK.

Then after that we were stuck in the curfew,'' she said.

''We were scared, and that scared everyone else around us because were crying to go home. Our family's first duty is to send us back safely and then worry about themselves,'' she added. ''My sister says she's never coming back, but I think I'll come back soon.'' Police scoured the evacuees belongings, rifling through clothes, books and even packs of playing cards, before they took buses headed for Colombo.

FIGHTING RAGES

ON As the ferry carrying 161 people sailed into Trincomalee harbour before dawn, the military fired multi-barrel rockets towards rebel positions and the foes exchanged intense artillery fire.

Many foreign aid agencies are also pulling staff out of Jaffna until it becomes clearer whether a 2002 ceasefire will collapse completely and pave way for a full-blown return to the civil war that has killed more than 65,000 people.

Many agencies have had to halt operations in some areas, interrupting post-tsunami projects. Fighting in the north and east has displaced around 200,000 people in the past month.

''In my life I never heard a shell or whatever. The first night I thought it was the weather, thunder! Then I understood it was a real war,'' said Alfons Schabarum from Cologne, an advisor with Germany-based aid group the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation.

''I came to support the peace process two weeks after the (December. 2004) tsunami, but after three months it was clear they were not going to use this chance for cooperation,'' he added. ''It has just been getting worse and worse.'' Some aid workers told of how the army was taking over belongings such as vehicles and supplies from some organisations, amid a shortage of fuel and food in the peninusla after a two week siege by the rebels.

The Tigers have dismissed a government call for them to relinquish Sampur, which sits at the mouth of Trincomalee harbour around 140 miles (230 km) northeast of Colombo.

''Sampur is our controlled territory. They have no right to ask us to leave,'' S. Puleedevan, head of the Tigers' peace secretariat, told Reuters by telephone from the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

''We are worried they are going to launch a new offensive against Sampur. If they do we will fight it with all out might.''

REUTERS