[Reuters]

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Monday for a “suspension in fighting” between the Sri Lanka government and Tamil Tiger separatists to allow civilians to escape. “There is an urgent need to bring this conflict to an end without any further unnecessary loss of civilian life and destruction of Sri Lankan society,” Ban told reporters. “The U.N. deplores the increasing casualties among civilians trapped in the intense fighting … and would strongly support a suspension in fighting for the purpose of allowing safe passage of (the) civilian population trying to flee the conflict,” Ban said.

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[AFP]

Sri Lanka’s military on has demanded the complete surrender of the Tamil Tigers, rejecting rebel calls for an immediate ceasefire. Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said the Government could not accept a conditional truce from the cornered Tamil Tigers and insisted that the guerrillas should unconditionally lay down arms first. Earlier, the rebels announced in a statement they were ready to comply with international calls for a ceasefire but said they would not lay down their arms.

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[Los Angeles Times]

The number of civilian deaths in Sri Lanka has risen sharply in the last month, Human Rights Watch said Friday, calling on both sides in the protracted civil war to stop firing at civilians or shelling areas where they are concentrated. The government has been battling the Tamil Tiger rebel group, which wants a homeland for the Tamil minority, for the last 25 years. In recent weeks the army has stepped up its offensive, boxing in the rebels in a smaller area in the north. But by some estimates, up to 100,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone, with both sides unwilling to halt their fire and let them flee.

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[AFP]

Thousands of members of the Tamil diaspora rallied Friday outside the White House to demand US pressure on the Sri Lankan government as it pursues a major offensive against Tiger rebels. The rally was met by a smaller counter-demonstration, mostly by members of Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community, who called for the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end their trademark suicide attacks. The protests came just as the LTTE carried out a kamikaze-style air attack on Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, bombing the main tax building and killing two people.

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[AFP]

EU foreign ministers are set to make a joint call next week for an immediate ceasefire between Sri Lankan security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels to allow aid in and civilians out of the conflict zone.

“The EU is deeply concerned about the evolving humanitarian crisis and vast number of internally displaced people,” according to a draft agreement prepared for European foreign ministers to endorse when they meet in Brussels Monday.

“The EU calls for an immediate ceasefire thereby providing for the establishment of full and unrestricted access” to allow humanitarian aid in and traumatised civilians out of the narrow strip of coastal jungle area in northern Sri Lanka.

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[BBC]

The campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has accused the Sri Lankan army of “slaughter” and rebels of “brutality” towards civilians in the north-east. It called on the government to end its “indiscriminate artillery attacks” on civilians and its policy of “detaining displaced persons in internment camps”. Human Rights Watch also condemned the Tamil Tigers for “increased brutality” towards trapped civilians. The government and rebels both strongly deny targeting civilians. Top UN humanitarian official John Holmes is currently in Sri Lanka and is visiting camps of displaced civilians in the north-east.

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[Human Rights Watch]

The Sri Lankan government should immediately cease its indiscriminate artillery attacks on civilians in the northern Vanni region and its policy of detaining displaced persons in internment camps, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Since early January 2009, civilian casualties have skyrocketed in the fighting between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

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[Winchester Star]

In the past week alone, there have been reports of the Sri Lankan government using white phosphorous-based combustible chemical bombs, on innocent Tamil civilians who are in their “safe zones”. These chemicals can burn away human flesh to the bone, and violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. Pictures of the burn victims have been released by Tamil media, and I have managed to talk to one family, whose members live near the region and came to government controlled areas, who has confirmed these claims.

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[Reuters]

About 20,000 Tamils from across Europe are expected to protest in Geneva on Friday at Sri Lanka’s military offensive against Tamil rebels, the United Nations said on Thursday. Police in the Swiss city, which is home to the U.N. European headquarters and to many Tamil immigrants, said 200 buses from across Europe were expected to bring protesters in. Demonstrators were expected to wind through Geneva in the afternoon and then rally in the public square in front of the U.N.’s Palais des Nations complex, where Tamils held smaller protests in past weeks as fighting intensified in Sri Lanka.

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[Norwegian People's Aid]

In an open letter to president Mahinda Rajapaska the Cluster Munition Coalition urges Sri Lanka to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions…As you know some recent media coverage of the conflict between Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE focused on erroneous allegations of cluster munition use. As you are no doubt aware, the United Nations spokesperson Gordon Weiss issued a corrective to Amnesty International on 6 February noting that UN staff had: “… confused the explosion of cluster munitions with air-burst fragmentation munitions, which deliver shrapnel over a wide area and which have a similar loud explosive report, followed by many smaller reports.” This is consistent with analysis by weapons experts of ordnance photographed in the conflict region, identified as OFAB airburst fragmentation shells.

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