Sri Lanka troops move in on Tigers, 49,000 flee

COLOMBO (Reuters) Sri Lankan soldiers battled into the last redoubt of the Tamil Tigers on Tuesday, and an exodus of people trapped by the rebels in the coastal strip hit 52,000, the military said.

The operation gathered speed after the military's noon (0630 GMT) deadline for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to surrender passed without any word from the separatists, in what appears to be the final act in Asia's longest-running war.

The LTTE hours later vowed no surrender despite being massively outgunned by a military built up to wipe them out.

"LTTE will never surrender and we will fight and we have the confidence that we will win with the help of the Tamil people," Seevaratnam Puleedevan, secretary-general of the LTTE peace secretariat, told Reuters by telephone.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned the situation was "nothing short of catastrophic" and urged both sides to prevent further mass casualties among civilians, saying hundreds had been killed in the past 48 hours.

The neutral agency did not assign blame to either side.

Sri Lanka's military, in what it dubbed the world's largest hostage rescue operation, moved in to keep the stream of people moving and give troops a clear shot at the LTTE and its elusive leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran.

"The number of people is up to 52,000 and we have reached the beach," military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said, indicating troops had cut the Tiger's last remaining area in half. He denied civilians were being harmed.

The Tigers' Puleedevan said Prabhakaran, the 54-year-old guerrilla who since the 1970s has single-mindedly led a fight for a separate nation for Tamils -- which became full-blown war in 1983 -- was directing the fight in what the army had set up as a no-fire zone, but is now a last battleground.

A BLOODY END?

After the conventional end of the war, Sri Lanka will face the challenges of healing divisions between the Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority, and boosting a $40 billion economy suffering on many fronts including a weakening rupee.

But on Tuesday for the second day running, the Colombo Stock Exchange gained on positive investor sentiment over the war effort and was at a more than two-month high.

Sri Lanka is seeking a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund loan to shore up a balance of payments crisis and boost flagging foreign exchange reserves, which Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said should be finished soon.

The United Nations and Western governments have urged the military to renew a brief truce to negotiate the civilians' exit, a plea the government has rejected on the grounds the Tigers have dismissed all entreaties to let the people out.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa also again turned down Britain's attempt to send a special envoy and ruled out any pause in military action during a phone call with Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday, the president's office said.

"President Rajapaksa observed that this movement of civilians had evoked a completely new situation and he had instructed that additional consignments of food, medicine and other essentials be dispatched," a statement released on Tuesday said.

Puleedevan, the LTTE peace secretariat head, again urged a permanent ceasefire and accused the government of killing 1,000 people and wounding 2,000 on Monday via shelling.
TAMIL PROTESTS

The stream of people leaving started on Monday after troops breached an earthen berm blocking the main route out of the 17 square km (6.5 sq mile) zone.

The final operation to crush the Tigers set off protests by expatriate Tamils in London and Paris, the latest in weeks of demonstrations against the offensive in cities across the world.

In Paris, around 180 people were arrested and four injured when the demonstration turned violent as protesters blocked an intersection and threw objects at buses and police, police said.

The United Nations has long said the LTTE was forcibly preventing people from leaving and making others fight, which the LTTE denies.

Sri Lanka provided video taken from unmanned aerial drones on Monday showing thousands of people fleeing the area, and what it said were LTTE fighters firing at others trying to get out.

It was impossible to independently verify the competing accounts since the battle zone is off-limits to most outsiders.
SOURCE : REUTERS
VIDEO: istreamnews

Category:

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[josephperera]

shpaztic is damn right. This is all SL government propaganda. In fact the army has not even moved to Killinochichi. Prabhakaran is still conducting the war from their while the army is still dreaming of taking over the place.

All these videos are stimulations created by the SL government to mislead the people. In fact Prabhakarn in now working hard to contest the next presidential election. I will vote for him. Just see his size. Isn't it a symbol of prosperity?

[paraltte]

God Save The Sri Lanken DF.

[Bravelion001]

Tamils who were rescued by SLA hates LTTE. Not only them, most of the tamils hate LTTE but their are banned espressing their views or they have to face consequences. But this game will be over very soon......... lets count down.

[ponnapille]

lttp kill tamil saranam kachei poddu

stupid lttp your people never kill civiliance!!!??

lttp modaya hiding in safe-zone rothaya

parei murderko-run

sahiliya tamila

devil murugaa

go sef-zone!

[ponnapille]

This is all bullshit, its all a made up story, lttp  said a completely different civillian number. If the lttp are going to lie, they should plan the story properly first as usual!

This is why they have hide behind civiliance, to cover up the truth there is allways tamil net! Maybe the rest of the world should start questioning all of these stories of lttp and safty of murderko-run so we can have independantly verified stories. Not all this propaganda crap just to boost morale of hiding tigers

[ponnapille]

If the lttp cared about civilians, they wouldn't have gotten them cornered in the first place... and lttp wouldn't be hiding behind them into barbed wire bunkers. There are no good sides to this thanks to lttp!.

[hipanton]

lol i see that you copy same text to many videos haha.. its that all u got loser? do u give a fuck about poor tamils in sri lanka? why u stupid ppl mast find out wery stupid things to fuck with us? cant u never understang what u doing to your own ppl? or is that somthing u never going to change? why mast of your ltte supporter just think about eelam? anyway u better never return to SL, becouz iam garanty that you gonna get gang bang bye the real tamils in sri lanka. fuck ltte

[waterforpeople]

If the SL govt cared about civilians, they wouldn't have gotten them cornered in the first place... and they wouldn't be loading them into barbed wire camps. There are no good sides to this.

[somer209]

putham kill tamil saranam kachei army

stupid sinhalayo your people never kill tamils!!!??

sinhalaya modaya kavum handa rothaya

parei singala

sahiliya sinhala

devil budha

go Hell

[OrdinarySriLankan]

Suicide carders of the LTTE terrorists blew them selves up to prevent the innocent civilians from escaping their dictatorial clutches. Sri Lanka army rescued 41,000 Tamil civilians without firing a single bullet ! And you can see how these civilians are looked after by the Sri Lanka Army by providing medicine, food and shelter.