A staff worker of the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) was killed in northern Sri Lanka where the government troops and the Tamil Tiger rebels are engaged in fierce fighting, ICRC officials said here on Thursday.A spokesperson from the ICRC's Sri Lankan office confirmed the worker was killed by shrapnel while he was returning after sending some of the seriously wounded patients from the Maaththalan hospital to an ICRC ship in the Mullaitivu district around 5 p.m. local time (1130 GMT) on Wednesday.
The spokesperson said it is not clear which party is responsible for the incident, but stressed that the ICRC will continue its humanitarian operation in the conflict zone.
The victim, K. Vijayarasa, has been serving in the ICRC since 1997 and became a team leader in 2000.
The ICRC is the only international aid agency operating in northern Sri Lanka to help conflict-affected people in the war area.
Jacques de Maio, the ICRC's head of operations for South Asia, said the ICRC believed that up to 150,000 people are still trapped in the Vanni -- the main battlefield between the troops and the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eealm (LTTE).
The military said their offensive against the LTTE is at final stage as they have been limited to just 55 sq km of territory in Mullaittivu.
The LTTE sought to set up a separate homeland for the minority Tamil community in the north and east claiming discrimination at the hands of the Sinhalese majority ruling community.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in Asia's longest civil war since the LTTE launched their armed campaign in the mid-1980s.
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