[ MSF ]

“We treat as many people as we can directly on site because the hospital is more than full,” explained Alexa ter Horst, a Dutch doctor working at Omanthai. In five days, from May 16 to 20, 77,000 people emerged from the former conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka arriving in the Vavuniya district. Many of them needed urgent medical care. MSF teams have been providing medical services day and night at different locations in the district, from the checkpoint close to the former front line to the hospital in the city of Vavuniya.

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[ Reuters ]

The United Nations’ refugee chief called on Tuesday for an international investigation to determine if Sri Lankan government forces and Tamil rebels had committed war crimes. Ensuring accountability for abuses committed in the recent fighting was important for the island nation’s national reconciliation, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said.

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[ Telegraph ]

Aid officials, human rights campaigners and politicians claim Tamils have been driven out of areas in the north-east of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias. They say the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages. One foreign charity worker told the Daily Telegraph the number of Tamils disappearing in and around Trincomalee, 50 miles south of the final conflict zone in Mullaitivu, had been increasing in the last three months.

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[The Times]

Sri Lanka is to clash with Western powers at the United Nations Human Rights Council today in an effort to ward off any investigation into alleged war crimes committed during its military offensive against the Tamil Tigers. The country has marshalled a team of powerful allies led by China, Russia and India to fight off a European-backed resolution at today’s special session on Sri Lanka calling for an inquiry into abuses on both sides of the conflict. Observers at yesterday’s preliminary meeting in Geneva, which was described as acrimonious, said that the 47-member Council was divided over the European resolution, with 18 countries for and 18 against. The other nine are undecided.

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[Globe and Mail]

As the President’s motorcade passed slowly through Colombo Monday, 20-year-old university student Chaturi Waidyasekera pressed her head to the ground, then rose and chanted, “Praise our king” Dozens of others did the same, beneath billboards that pictured Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the white robes of a Buddhist deity. Ms. Waidyasekera explained, calmly, that she believes the elected leader of Sri Lanka should remain in office for life because last week he ended a 26-year civil war with the violent defeat of the Tamil Tigers.

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[BBC]

Sri Lanka’s defence secretary has rejected the Tamil Tigers’ offer to enter a democratic process after their military defeat by government forces. In an interview with the BBC, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said the LTTE rebels could not be trusted to give up “terrorism”. “I do not believe the LTTE can enter a democratic process after years of their violent activities,” Mr Rajapaksa said. The rebels had said they would give up violence after their leader was killed in recent fighting in the north-east. “I am not interested in LTTE at all,” the defence secretary - the most senior civilian official in charge of the war against the Tamil Tigers - told the BBC in a wide-ranging telephone interview. He said there were “enough democratic Tamil political parties in the country” to represent the Tamil minority.

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[Sky News]

There are numerous reports of sexual assaults in the government-run camps, and claims that groups of young men are being rounded up and taken away. United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon will demand unfettered access to the camps during his visit to the country, as well as access to other areas which have been off-limits to aid workers and journalists for months. More than 40 camps have been set up to cope with more than 200,000 people left homeless by the long-running conflict. The people inside the camps are kept behind barbed wire and are not allowed to leave.

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[ Channel 4 News ]

A key Tamil Tiger leader has spoken exclusively to Channel 4 News, saying their chief is still alive and they want a political solution. Alex Thomson reports. image In an exclusive interview, LTTE Tamil Tigers head of international relations Selvarajah Pathmanathan said:

- Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is in the beseiged zone with 2000 Tamil fighters

- He spoke to by phone to Prabakharan for four hours and the orders to lay down arms came from him

- This is not a surrender, they are laying down arms to protect 25,000 injured Tamils in the area

- 3000 civilians have been killed in the area in the last 24 hours

- The doctors who were speaking to the outside world have escaped but one is injured and another has been arrested and is in a Sri Lankan military camp

- The Tamil Tigers did not fire on civilians or take human shields.

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[BBC]

Tamil rebels trapped in a tiny enclave of northern Sri Lanka have declared a ceasefire, a rebel spokesman says. The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) had given up their fight against a major government offensive and “decided to silence our guns”, he said on a pro-Tamil website. “This battle has reached its bitter end,” said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tigers’ chief of international relations, in a statement on Tamilnet. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has already claimed victory in the 26-year war. A later statement on the Tamilnet website appeared to modify the rebel position.

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[The Observer]

Fears are growing for the safety of the doctors who acted as the eyes and ears of the world during the Sri Lankan army’s final assault on the Tamil Tigers’s last stronghold in the north-east of the country. Doctors Thangamutha Sathiyamoorthy, Thurairaja Varatharajah and V Shanmugarajah, and London-trained administrative officer Vany Kumar, are understood to have been detained by Sri Lankan forces as they tried to escape the fighting on Friday. They have not been heard from since. The Sri Lankan army denies involvement in their disappearance.

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