[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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[Save the Children]

Save the Children has begun delivering life-saving aid to some of the thousands of civilians who have been able to flee the war zone in northern Sri Lanka. Nearly 28,000 people - many of whom have lost everything - have arrived in the district of Vavuniya, approximately 100km south of the fighting, in the past few days and are completely dependent on aid from the Sri Lankan authorities, the UN and non-governmental organisations. Thousands more people are expected to arrive in the coming weeks. Save the Children, in collaboration with the government and other agencies, has already given thousands of children and their families clothes, bedding, hygiene kits including soap and toothbrushes and other basic items.

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[NY Times]

FOR 25 years, the dirty little war on this island in the Indian Ocean has stretched its octopus arms across the world. The ethnic Tamil diaspora has provided vital funding for separatist rebels; remittances from Sri Lankan workers abroad have propped up the economy; the government has relied on foreign assistance to battle the insurgency. Today, a shifting world order is bearing new fruits for Sri Lanka. Most notably, China’s quiet assertion in India’s backyard has put Sri Lanka’s government in a position not only to play China off against India, but also to ignore complaints from outside Asia about human rights violations in the war.

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