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Fighting across Sri Lanka kills 31

Fighting across Sri Lanka's north has left at least 31 people dead, nearly all of them Tamil Tiger rebels, the island's military said yesterday.

The defense ministry said at least 30 Tamil Tiger rebels and one soldier were killed in the fresh wave of fighting on Friday, although the pro-rebel Web site Tamilnet.com said three government soldiers and two guerrillas died.

The fighting took place in Mannar in the northwest, the Web site said.

Since the start of this month, the Sri Lankan government has said it has killed 666 rebels for the loss of 27 of its soldiers. At least 63 civilians had also been killed, according to defense ministry figures.

Both sides give wildly varying casualty figures that cannot be independently verified as the government bars journalists from visiting frontline areas and rebel-held territory.

The government also pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire this month, leading to the departure of Nordic monitoring teams.

Meanwhile doctors in Anuradhapura District, 200km north of Colombo, were expected to conduct autopsies on 16 bodies found in shallow graves on Thursday.

The victims had apparently been blindfolded, bound and shot -- the latest casualties of a war that has become increasingly dirty and in which both sides are accused of murdering civilians.

A spokesman at Anuradhapura Hospital said the autopsies were scheduled for yesterday, with officials hoping to identify the victims and the circumstances of their deaths.

The victims were wearing civilian clothes and appeared to be aged between 25 and 40, said a senior police officer in the area, who declined to be named.

He said additional police and military personnel had been deployed in the area following the incident.

"People in the area are living in fear after the bodies were discovered and they asked for extra protection," he said.
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