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Civilians fleeing fighting stopped by Tamil Tigers, says UN
Sydney Morning Herald - February 18, 2009
Matt Wade – Tamil Tiger rebels are using force to stop thousands of civilians from escaping the fighting in Sri Lanka's northern war zone, the United Nations says.
Some of those trying to flee have been shot dead and children are being made to fight in the army of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the UN said. "It's a sign of their desperation," a UN spokesman, Gordon Weiss, told the Herald yesterday.
There were also reports of battles inside the Government-designated "safe zone".
Tamil Tiger guerillas have waged a 25-year war for a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka but have recently been pushed back to a small strip of land in the north-east of the country known as the Vanni pocket.
The territory held by the rebels is steadily shrinking as 50,000 Sri Lankan troops close in on a dwindling force of Tamil Tiger cadres.
About 35,000 people have fled the rebel-controlled area since the beginning of last month, but an estimated 200,000 civilians remain in the war zone, including many children. They are experiencing serious shortages of food, medicine and clean water, and aid agencies are deeply concerned about their wellbeing.
"The LTTE continues to actively prevent people leaving, and reports indicate that a growing number of people trying to leave have been shot and sometimes killed," the UN said in a statement.
"There are indications that children as young as 14 are being recruited into the ranks of the LTTE." The UN also said one of its staff members had been forcibly recruited into the LTTE.
The Tigers have denied charges that they are attacking civilians and say Tamils are staying in the area they control of their own accord.
The president of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation, Velupillai Sivanadiyar, criticised the UN over its claims and accused it of attempting to hide its "own failures".
Expatriate Tamils have circulated reports that young men of fighting age in the refugee columns leaving the war zone are being separated and taken away by the Sri Lankan Army.
Temporary "model villages" being set up by the Sri Lankan Government to accommodate Tamil refugees have also been compared to Nazi "concentration camps" by critics.
Mr Weiss said the Government had a legitimate security purpose in screening refugees but that these processes needed to be balanced with the need to "treat civilians as civilians".
"People need to be returned to a normal life as quickly as possible," he said.
Journalists and most other independent observers have been barred from the conflict zone, so claims by either side cannot be verified.
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