IDPs identifying LTTE cadres in Lanka refugee camps: Army

Colombo, May 25 (ANI): The spokesman of the Sri Lankan Army, Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, on Monday said that Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in welfare camps are identifying several former Tigers hiding among them and handing them over to the Army.

The Colombo Times quoted Brigadier Nanayakkara as saying that former Tigers have been taken in for questioning about the roles they played in the Tiger movement.

"Some of them will be indicted before the Courts depending on the roles they played in the Tiger movement, and some others will be sent for rehabilitation," he added.

In all there are about 5000 former Tigers housed among civilians in the welfare camps, he claimed.

n several instances, former Tigers had been beaten up by civilians and hospitalized by the Army.

Meanwhile, another report has described Sri Lanka's 'no-fire zone' as a place of utter devastation that it mocks its very name.

"It is hell unleashed in paradise. A glistening white beach packed with home made bunkers where civilians huddled to protect themselves from the shells that the government denies launching in the final weeks of the offensive. There are craters in the white sand; the charcoal-coloured scorch marks and bombed-out dwellings."

No journalists, aid workers or independent observers had access to the zone until the weekend, when a small group of journalists accompanied the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki Moon, on a flight over the zone.

The UN believes that between 8,000 and 10,000 civilians have died in the conflict since the beginning of this year.

The government denies inflicting a single civilian death, blaming the Tigers for the shelling.

What happened inside the so-called 'no-fire zone' will not be the subject of any investigation in Sri Lanka, although the prime minister has called for a commission to investigate the arming and activities of the Tigers. (ANI)