Sri Lanka

Government to open two safe passages for Tamil civilians

Article published on the 2009-03-06 Latest update 2009-03-06 14:35 TU

Navy medical personnel carry injured Tamil girls in Trincomalee
(Photo: Reuters)

The Sri Lankan government has promised to open two safe passages to allow thousands of civilians trapped in its war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to leave the conflict zone. Earlier UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon "strongly deplored" the civilian death toll.

Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said on Friday that the government is calling on trapped civilians to leave the small area in which the LTTE's fighters are now trapped.

"The idea is to ask the people to [...] walk away," he said.

And he challeged the separatist rebels to let civilians leave.

"We would hope that the LTTE, if they are really interested in their people, would let those people go."

But the minister said the move did not amount to a temporary ceasefire, which the LTTE has demanded.

Estimates vary as to how many civilians are concerned, according to correspondent Amal Jayasinghe.

"The government insists that there are about 70,000 people still trapped in this area," he told RFI, "while people like the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, they maintain that the number could be more than double, possibly in the region of about 200,000."

The LTTE puts the figure even higher than that, Jayasinghe says, adding that, "The number of civilians caught up the fighting appears to be growing on a daily basis."

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon declared that he "strongly deplores the mounting death toll of civilians", saying that it includes "a significant number of children".

He called on both sides to suspend hostilities to allow civilians to leave the conflict zone and allow NGOs to have access to them.