UN condemns Sri Lankan 'bloodbath'

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-11 20:18

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- The United Nations condemned a "bloodbath" in Sri Lanka's northern war zone Monday after two days of shelling that a government doctor said killed at least 430 ethnic Tamil civilians, and likely as many as 1,000.

With the civilian death toll skyrocketing in the civil war, a coalition of international human rights groups called for the UN Security Council to urgently hold talks on the conflict.

Tamil protesters block the Gardiner Expressway, a major freeway going through the middle of downtown Toronto May 10, 2009, to protest the conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). [Agencies]

A rebel-linked Web site blamed the attacks on the government, while the military accused the beleaguered Tamil Tigers insurgents of shelling their own territory to gain international sympathy and force a cease-fire.

The first barrage struck the tiny sliver of northeast coast still held by the rebels Saturday evening and lasted through the night, health officials said.

Sunday evening, a new round of shelling, less intense than the first, pounded a newly demarcated "safe zone" where the government had urged civilians to gather, according to Dr. V. Shanmugarajah, who works at a makeshift hospital in the war zone.

A total of 393 people were either brought to the hospital for burial or died at the facility Sunday, while another 37 bodies were brought in Monday morning, he said. More than 1,300 wounded civilians came to the hospital as well, he said.

However, the death toll was likely far higher, he said. Many of the dead were buried in the bunkers where they had taken refuge and then were killed, and many of the wounded never made it to the hospital for treatment, he said.

"There were many who died without medical attention," Shanmugarajah said. "Seeing the number of wounded and from what the people tell me, I estimate the death toll to be around 1,000."

Volunteers dug mass graves in the marshland near the hospital, putting 50 to 60 bodies in each pit, he said. One of the hospital's nurses was killed along with his family in a trench that was then filled with soil and turned into their grave, he said.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government bars journalists and aid workers from the war zone. The attacks marked the bloodiest assault on ethnic Tamil civilians since the civil war flared again more than three years ago.

"The UN has consistently warned against the bloodbath scenario as we've watched the steady increase in civilian deaths over the last few months," UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said Monday. "The large-scale killing of civilians over the weekend, including the deaths of more than 100 children, shows that that bloodbath has become a reality."

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