Sri Lanka schools closed as crisis worsens
Soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels traded artillery and mortar fire in northern Sri Lanka today, an official said, as schools closed in the capital over fears that civilians could be targeted by insurgent bombings.
Clashes in northern and eastern Sri Lanka over the past four weeks have undermined the country’s already shaky cease-fire, and the violence continued unabated today on the northern Jaffna Peninsula, the heartland of the Tamil minority in whose name the Tigers claim to fight.
A military official said soldiers were facing attacks around Muhumalai, a village along the frontier that separates government and Tamil Tiger territory, and that ”we are returning artillery and mortar fire.” The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.
Aid workers estimate that around 100,000 people have been displaced in northern and eastern Sri Lanka by the worst fighting since a 2002 cease-fire
The truce was intended to halt more than two decades of bloodshed between the government, dominated by Sri Lanka’s 14 million Sinhalese, and the rebels, who have been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for the country’s 3.2 million Tamils.
While it remains officially in effect, months of shootings and bombings already had left it in tatters before the latest round of clashes, which began in July over a water supply in eastern Sri Lanka and then spread north.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was “increasingly alarmed” over the violence and called on both sides “to cease hostilities immediately and to return to the negotiating table,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at UN headquarters in New York.
In Colombo, the Education Ministry ordered schools closed until August 28 after a bombing a day earlier in the capital killed seven and a Tiger front group reportedly threatened to hit civilians in southern Sri Lanka, where the Sinhalese dominate.
A day earlier in Colombo, a bomb in an auto rickshaw blew up as a car carrying Pakistan’s high commissioner, Basir Ali Mohmand, passed by along a crowded road. At least seven people were killed and 10 injured.
But the diplomat, who was believed to be the target of the blast, escaped unhurt.
Pakistan is a major supplier of arms to Sri Lanka’s military, and officials here blamed the attack on the Tigers, who offered no comment.
But there were conflicting reports about whether the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber or explosives packed in the rickshaw.
Earlier yesterday, Sri Lankan air force jets bombed the north-eastern Mullaitivu district, deep inside rebel territory.
The pro-rebel TamilNet Web site, citing Tiger officials, reported that 61 girls who were studying there were killed and another 60 were injured.
However, Air Force spokesman Group Capt. Ajantha Silva said the military had proof that the site was a rebel base.
An official from a Nordic ceasefire monitoring team, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the site appeared to be a home for students between 17 and 20 years old.
The official said a monitor who visited the site saw only 19 bodies at a nearby hospital, but believed there may have been more elsewhere.
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