The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have fought for more than two decades to carve out a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million minority Tamils in the north and east.
The 2002 cease-fire between the Tigers and the government put a temporary halt to the bloodshed, but the truce has nearly collapsed in recent months, and renewed fighting has killed more than 900 people -- half of them civilians -- since December, monitors say.
The water crisis dramatically escalated the violence, with six days of fighting around the northeastern port town of Trincomalee and the nearby town of Muttur.
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