Sri Lanka bombs Tigers
Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:54am ET
By Peter Apps
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lankan jets hit the Tamil Tiger front line on Friday as fighting raged on the northern Jaffna peninsula, cut off by the rebels, and residents with foreign passports begged their embassies to get them out.
Almost three weeks of ground fighting, the first since a 2002 ceasefire, has left the government-held Jaffna enclave largely cut off and areas near the port of Trincomalee under intermittent artillery fire.
"In Jaffna, it's becoming almost a First World War type of battle," said a Western diplomat. "They are sitting in the ground shooting at each other without much real movement."
The military said it had bombed selected targets on the front line where the two sides have now been fighting for a week. Communication with the area is virtually impossible, with curfews in most civilian areas and shortages rising.
Across the island, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 160,000 people have fled their homes -- 41,000 of them in Jaffna. Aid staff say there are queues for fuel, shortages of food and a desperate scramble to get cash from banks whenever the curfew is lifted for a few hours.
Fearing robbery as crime rose along with violence between government and rebels earlier in the year, many Jaffna residents sold their jewelry and valuables and put their money in banks. Getting access to it is now almost impossible, aid staff say.
"We need both sides to stop fighting so we can get proper access to the area," said UNHCR representative Amin Awad. "Food is getting low and we have worries about water and sanitation."
No fixed-wing aircraft are flying out of the enclave and sea movement seems to have been curtailed. Diplomats say Jaffna's airbase is under artillery fire and possibly damaged, leaving the military largely unable to resupply except by helicopter.
WANTING TO GET OUT
Jaffna has long been seen as a key rebel objective in the LTTE's two-decade war for a separate Tamil homeland, but diplomats are unsure whether the Tigers aim to take it soon.
Aid workers say columns of army troops and vehicles have been moving up to Trincomalee, just north of where fighting initially began around a rebel-held waterway. It was unclear whether they would be used in the area or taken by ship toward Jaffna, where the army says more than 100 soldiers died this week.
Truce monitors say more than 800 had died this year even before the ground war began. Diplomats say a similar number may have been killed in the last three weeks alone. The European Union and United States urged both sides on Thursday to stop the fighting.
The EU and the United States will discuss the worsening conflict with the other key donor, Japan, and mediator Norway in Brussels around mid-September, officials said.
There are a handful of Western aid staff in Jaffna, many intending to stay, but embassies say several hundred Tamil residents with foreign passports want evacuation. With road and air links blocked, diplomats hope a Red Cross ship can get in.
"We have British Tamils, German Tamils, Norwegian Tamils, Canadian Tamils," one diplomat said. "They all seem to want to come out."
Some international agencies -- as well as unarmed Nordic ceasefire monitors -- are also moving their staff south out of Trincomalee after artillery fire hit within a couple of miles of the beachfront hotels where many were staying.
After 17 mainly Tamil staff from Paris-based aid group Action Contre La Faim were murdered after fighting south of Trincomalee, few want to take chances. It was the worst attack on aid staff since the 2003 bombing of the United Nations compound in Baghdad.
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