U.N. warns of Sri Lanka crisis
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 20, 2006
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Two days of heavy artillery and mortar fire have killed more than 80 Tamil Tiger rebels, Sri Lanka's military said Saturday, and the United Nations warned of an impending humanitarian crisis in areas cut off by fierce fighting.
Sri Lanka's air force destroyed a strategic Tamil sea base in the north, killing an unknown number of rebels, said military spokesman Maj. Upali Rajapakse.
Despite the continuing violence, Sri Lanka's president told United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the door was still open for peace talks with the rebels, the government said.
Rajapakse said the separatist Tigers had been using the sea base to launch recent attacks on government positions in the Jaffna Peninsula, which the Tigers claim as the cultural homeland of the country's 3.2-million ethnic Tamils.
About 800 rebels and security forces have been killed in fighting in Jaffna since Aug. 11, when rebels made a push to retake the government-held, Tamil-majority peninsula.
Violence has increased in the past few weeks in the north and east, where the insurgents have been fighting for more than two decades for a separate homeland from the Sinhalese-dominated government.
The country appears to be spiraling back into all-out war, although a cease-fire brokered in 2002 nominally remains in place.
Most of the fighting has been focused around the eastern port of Trincomalee and in Jaffna, where the 500,000 residents remain under a 22-hour curfew and food, water and other staples are running low.
The United Nations announced Saturday that only minimal aid has been able to reach the tens of thousands of people who have been displaced by the fighting.
"Certainly we are deeply concerned about the water and food and sanitation problem," U.N. spokeswoman Orla Clinton said. "If we don't get access, then yes, it will be a humanitarian crisis. Aid agencies need unconditional and immediate access."
The government said it would send 3,800 tons of food and other aid to Jaffna.
The U.N.'s refugee agency estimates that 170,000 people have fled their homes since April, when a rebel attack on soldiers in Trincomalee sparked ethnic clashes.
In his phone call with Annan, President Mahinda Rajapakse assured him that the government would provide assistance to U.N. agencies.
With food scarce, private shop owners hiked the prices of basic goods, and long lines formed at state-owned shops. Access roads to the north have been cut, and electricity is limited.
Jaffna's top government official, K. Kanesh, denied that there was an acute shortage of food. "In a situation like this, there are certain difficulties," he said. He said the government was doing the best it could.
Jaffna's human rights department said it had received a complaint from about 300 people taking refuge at a welfare center in Mandativu, an islet off the peninsula, that the government had not provided them with food.