[Independent UK]

His name was Abi, he was six, and the last his family glimpsed of him was in the frenzied moments after deadly shells struck close to the bunker where they had been sheltering. His sisters were gravely injured, his mother too, and the young boy put his arm around her. “Mother,” he sobbed three times.

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[Al Jazeera]

Two years after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, the north’s roads, railways and homes are being rebuilt. But little attention has been placed on helping a population suffering from the trauma of being caught in the middle of decades of fighting.

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[Al Jazeera]

Sri Lanka’s long-running conflict was brutal for its women. More than 80,000 are said to have been widowed in war-affected areas of the island nation.

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[Unicef Newsline]

Since December 2009, UNICEF has supported the Family Tracing Unit based in Vavuniya, northern Sri Lanka. This joint venture with the government aims to help reunite families such as Jhoncy’s, who were separated during the final phase of Sri Lanka’s civil conflict.

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[BBC]

Until now journalists and foreign nationals needed permission from the defence ministry, even though the conflict ended two years ago.

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[CNN]

A hospital caught in the middle of fierce fighting between government forces and Tamil rebels in northern Sri Lanka has been closed down after being shelled for a ninth time in four days. A U.N. official says the facility, the last functioning hospital in the area, was fully evacuated Wednesday morning in the midst of the onslaught. “Our staff has been dug down into bunkers for the past 18 hours under sustained artillery fire, which included cluster munitions this morning,” said U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss. “We hold grave fears for the safety of these [workers]. It also includes 81 staff members who are dug down in these bunkers.”

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[ AP ]

Patients are fleeing a hospital that was hit four times by artillery shells in the war between the Tamil Tiger rebels and government forces in northern Sri Lanka this week, the Red Cross said Tuesday. Also Tuesday, the military said it had captured the rebels’ seventh and final airstrip, effectively grounding their tiny air force as troops pushed ahead with their offensive to crush the guerrilla group and end Asia’s longest-running civil war. On Monday, independent observers handed The Associated Press dramatic pictures and video, showing scores of civilians killed or maimed.

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[CNN]

Artillery shells slammed into a hospital Sunday in the northern Sri Lankan district of Mullaitivu, where civilians — including a growing number of children — are being treated as government forces and Tamil rebels continue to clash. More than 200 civilians and at least 30 children have been injured in the last three days of fighting, a relief worker told CNN Sunday. “That is the absolute minimum (number of injured),” the aid worker, who did not want to be identified for fear of jeopardizing the work of relief organizations, said.

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[OHCHR]

GENEVA — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Thursday she was deeply concerned by reports of the rapidly deteriorating conditions facing a quarter of a million civilians trapped in the conflict zone in northern Sri Lanka, and of alleged human rights abuses and a significant number of civilian casualties, as well as the huge displacement. Pillay also expressed concern at the highly restricted access to the Vanni region for aid agencies and impartial outside observers, including journalists and human rights monitors.

“The perilous situation of civilians after many months of fighting, multiple displacements and heavy rains and flooding is extremely worrying,” Pillay said. “The lack of access for independent monitors, humanitarian workers and the media only adds to concerns that the situation may be even worse than we realize,” she added.

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[CNN]

A major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Sri Lanka with 250,000 unprotected civilians trapped in the crossfire between government troops and rebel forces, the Red Cross says. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has appealed to both sides to facilitate the movement of civilians out of the combat zone which has seen intensified fighting. “People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded,” Jacques de Maio, ICRC head of operations for South Asia in Geneva said in a statement on the ICRC Web site.”

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