[The Observer]

Doctors say wounded Sri Lankan civilians are dying for want of proper medical treatment as they lie trapped in a makeshift hospital in the last rebel-held pocket in the north-east of the island. This weekend, hundreds of injured civilians poured in to the improvised medical facility in Putumattalan village, which has been repeatedly targeted by artillery. Earlier in the week 16 patients were killed in shelling. Both government forces and Tamil Tiger separatists have been accused of war crimes during the conflict, although confirmation is impossible because independent journalists are banned from the conflict zone.

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[AP]

The Sri Lankan military shelled a village and a makeshift hospital inside a government-declared “safe zone” for civilians in the north Thursday, killing at least 30 people and wounding scores, local health officials said. The military denied hitting the hospital and said it was taking precautions to protect civilians. Health officials said that at least 67 civilians have been killed in shelling since Tuesday. With the government’s offensive against the Tamil Tigers escalating, international aid groups are increasingly concerned about the safety of the hundreds of thousands of civilians reportedly living inside the shrinking pocket of rebel-held territory in northeast Sri Lanka.

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[Al Jazeera]

At least 67 civilians have been killed as Sri Lankan government troops push further into rebel Tamil Tiger territory, according to local health workers. Doctors claim around 30 people were killed on Thursday alone, after soldiers shelled a village and makeshift hospital in a government-declared “safe zone” on the edge of rebel-held territory in the north of the island. Kandasamy Tharmakulasingham, a local health official, said that shells hit a school doubling as a hospital on Thursday, one day after the government dropped leaflets across the area assuring civilians they were safe from attack.

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