[Human Rights Watch]

A humanitarian evacuation of civilians is desperately needed right now. Sri Lanka should urgently work with concerned governments to help civilians flee the fighting. Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.(New York) - The Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) should immediately agree to a plan of action to allow civilians trapped in the Vanni to leave the conflict area, Human Rights Watch said today. Some 150,000 civilians are at grave risk from fighting and aid shortages in the shrinking war zone in northeast Sri Lanka.

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[BBC]

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned of an impending humanitarian catastrophe in north-eastern Sri Lanka. Up to 150,000 people may be trapped in the area by fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels. The ICRC has reiterated calls for a mass evacuation of civilians and for far more aid to be allowed in. The ICRC’s Jacques de Maio said the situation was one of the worst disasters he had experienced.

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[Doctors Without Borders]

As heavy fighting continues in northern Sri Lanka, over 200,000 civilians remain trapped in the conflict in the Vanni region. But, over the past few weeks, some 35,000 people have managed to flee to the city of Vavuniya, 80 km south of the conflict zone. They tell of a beleaguered population living under constant threat of shelling and surrounded by the bodies of the dead and wounded. Food and drinking water are scare, and there is almost no access to medical care. Here are some of their stories.

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[AFP]

Tens of thousands of Sri Lankan civilians face “great danger” after being caught in fighting between Tamil rebels and the advancing military, a senior UN diplomat warned on Friday. “Estimates vary of the number of civilians trapped, from 70,000 according to the government, through around 200,000 according to UN estimates, up to 300,000 or more according to Tamil groups,” said UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes told Security Council members. The civilians were stuck in a no-man’s land spanning around 14 square kilometers (five square miles), as expectations grew that government forces would move in on Tamil positions in short order.

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[Doctors Without Borders]

Many are injured, some with infected wounds that are weeks old. As a result, many people have been maimed for life. Even those who have made it to Vavuniya have no freedom of movement, no access to information, and no options to look for lost family members. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is urgently calling on both parties in the conflict in the Vanni area in northern Sri Lanka to ensure the safety of civilians and to allow access to humanitarian assistance. As MSF has been denied access to the population trapped inside the Vanni, the organization is relying on the personal accounts of patients to highlight what is happening there.

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[Reuters]

Up to 85,000 civilians trapped in northeastern Sri Lanka could flee the war zone in coming weeks as the army closes in on rebel-held territory, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday. The Sri Lankan government has allocated 300 acres of land where the UNHCR can receive up to 42,000 people by the end of next week, spokesman William Spindler said, citing the need to double the space to accommodate uprooted people in the region.

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[UNICEF]

Sennappu had a split second, a moment, literally a heartbeat to throw her body around her 18-month-old daughter before the bomb landed. Her reactions were enough time to save the life of her baby girl. Sennappu was killed instantly. As Sri Lanka’s conflict has grown in intensity, so too has the number of civilians injured and killed. UNICEF has consistently called upon the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE (the rebel group known as the Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam) to give absolute priority to the protection of civilians. And yet mothers like Sennappu continue to die, as do children.

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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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[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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[The Independent]

All but hidden from view of the outside world, a bitter and savage war being waged in the north of Sri Lanka is creating a humanitarian crisis in which hundreds of thousands of civilians are at risk. In what may be the final chapters of one of the world’s longest-running civil wars, Sri Lankan troops say they are close to crushing the remnants of the once-potent Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Yet the military operation comes at a high price for civilians. Aid groups and officials say that dozens of civilians trapped in the war zone are being killed and wounded every day.

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