More than 10,000 Sri Lankan refugees are fleeing Tamil-Tiger held territory in the island's east, aid workers said yesterday, which analysts said meant a military showdown for control of the area was imminent.
Some on foot, others on tractors, the refugees left the rebel-held town of Vakarai on the island's northeast coast at dawn and were heading south towards government-held territory a few miles away.
"Some of the people are making their way down the coast, others are coming through jungle in vehicles," said Selvaraj Jeyaraj, project coordinator for the Italian Red Cross, by telephone from the eastern district of Batticaloa.
"We are talking about 12,000 internally displaced, more or less," he added.
The UN confirmed the exodus. About 20,000 to 25,000 refugees had already fled Vakarai in recent weeks.
He said about 500 people had reached government territory so far and the Tigers and the military had agreed to halt shelling at the request of the Red Cross after fierce fighting overnight. But sporadic shelling continued.
Neither the military nor the Tigers were immediately available for comment.
Vakarai is in the middle of a 20km long pocket of rebel-held territory, which the military has surrounded after capturing rebel areas in a series of battles in recent months.
The army has accused the Tigers of using displaced ethnic Tamils as human shields and planting thousands of landmines to prevent them leaving. But there has been no independent confirmation any mines had been laid.
"Thousands of people are streaming out," said UN spokeswoman Orla Clinton.
"Because we haven't had access [to Vakarai] since Nov. 29, food has been very short -- these people are obviously weak and afraid and we are looking for assurances their protection will be assured," she said.
Aid agencies, embassies and journalists have been clamoring for weeks to access rebel-held areas, which the government has refused.
The Tigers' eastern territories are cut off from their main northern stronghold by military-held areas.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to