The UN’s humanitarian chief was due in Sri Lanka yesterday as international concern over civilians trapped in the island’s warzone fueled a White House call for an immediate ceasefire.
John Holmes’ three-day mission would focus on pushing the government to facilitate humanitarian missions in and around the conflict zone and to allow proper access to tens of thousands of displaced civilians, the UN said.
The plight and suffering of those caught in the fighting between government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels prompted US President Barack Obama’s administration on Friday to urge an end to hostilities.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“We call on both sides to stop fighting immediately and allow civilians to safely leave the combat zone,” the White House said in a statement.
The Sri Lankan government has so far resisted all calls to halt an offensive that is now on the brink of wiping out the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, who have been fighting for an independent Tamil homeland since 1972.
The Tigers, once one of the most feared guerrilla organizations in the world, have seen their territory shrink to a sliver of land on the northeast coast estimated to measure 10km².
The White House specifically demanded an end to any military shelling in a designated “safe zone” and access for aid groups and journalists to civilians who have escaped.
A British surgeon working for Medecins Sans Frontieres, Paul McMasters, said his team in the state-run hospital in Vavuniya, near the conflict zone, had been overwhelmed by the influx of injured civilians.
“It’s so crowded that the nurses cannot physically walk around the ward,” he said, estimating the number of patients in a 45-bed ward at around 320.
“There are simply too many people to treat them all. We are not able to save some people because we need to provide more aftercare,” he said.
“There are simply not enough nurses,” he added.
The LTTE issued their own call for foreign intervention, warning of “imminent” starvation among civilians and even suggesting that the situation could deteriorate into a crisis as appalling as that in the Darfur region of Sudan.
It is not clear how many people are trapped in the small rebel-held area. The UN has estimated 50,000, while the government says 15,000 to 20,000 and the Tigers insist the real figure is 165,000.
UN figures released on Friday showed that Sri Lanka’s civil war was killing civilians in greater numbers than the Gaza conflict earlier this year, indicating that almost 6,500 ethnic Tamils had been killed in the last three months.
Two UN officials privately confirmed that 6,432 civilians had died, with 14,000 injured, since the end of January. At least 2,000 people are understood to have been killed in the last month but the death toll does not include those killed in this week’s intense fighting.
The UN has declined to publicly release its casualty figures, but the numbers indicate that, with 500 dying every week, the toll is heavier than it was in Gaza, where a three-week conflict left 1,400 dead. The Sri Lankan government has faced far weaker international censure for its offensive against the Tamil Tigers than Israel did for its war in Gaza.
Colombo denies allegations — supported by credible witness evidence from aid agencies and Tamil civilians — that hundreds of innocent people have been killed by the army in heavy shelling.
The government insists soldiers are only lightly armed and are trying to rescue trapped people. In the propaganda war that has accompanied the crisis the Tamil Tigers have also denied allegations that they were holding civilians hostage as human shields.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in