The Ceylon News

The Sri Lankan government has rejected a unilateral ceasefire declaration by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), saying the announcement as "a joke".

The LTTE declared the truce earlier on Sunday, after suffering devastating military losses in their secessionist war with the government.

"In the face of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and in response to the calls made by the UN, EU, the governments of India and others, the [LTTE] has announced a unilateral ceasefire," a statement on the group's website said on Sunday.

But Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the Sri Lanka defence secretary, said: "That is a joke.

"They were not fighting with us, they were running from us. There is no need of a ceasefire. They must surrender. That is it."

'Propaganda war'

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Sri Lankan military spokesman, told Al Jazeera: “We have very clearly indicated to them from the beginning that they have to lay down their arms and come and surrender.

David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Colombo, said: "The [LTTE] announcement was just another weapon in a propaganda war.

"The government has said all along there would not be a pause in the fighting ... as the Tamil Tigers have previously used it to strengthen their positions and take child soldiers into their ranks.

"By declaring a unilateral ceasefire, it put pressure on the Sri Lanka government as it means ... any pause would allow John Holmes [the United Nations' humanitarian chief] to go in and assess the situation."

'Military bombings'

Earlier, Sri Lanka's air force denied claims that it has dropped bombs close to civilians trapped in a conflict zone held by Tamil Tiger rebels.

The denial came after a Tamil television channel in Canada released a video appearing to show a Sri Lankan warplane shelling areas as civilians sheltered in trenches, saying the raids had been carried out over the past two days.

Janka Nayakkara, Sri Lankan air force spokesman, told Al Jazeera: "These are just baseless allegations.

"I don't see how anybody can identify that these bombs have been dropped on Sri Lankan soil or whether the aircraft has markings of the Sri Lankan air force."

He said the air force had not carried out any "offensive operations".

It is impossible to independently verify the veracity of the video footage as journalists and aid agencies are banned from entering the country's conflict zone.

'Civilians trapped'

The claims came as Holmes arrived in Sri Lanka for talks with the government on getting aid to people trapped in the conflict.

Civilians remaining in the conflict zone are believed to be without sufficient food [AFP]

"The top priority remains the preservation of the lives of the tens of thousands of civilians still trapped inside the combat zone," Holmes said.

Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera that Holmes would press "top government officials" to allow UN teams and aid to reach trapped civilians.

"He will be taking to them the very clear message that has been repeated many times ... that civilians must not be made to suffer in the course of this conflict to the extent that they obviously are," he said.

The civilians' situation has deteriorated in recent days with the Sri Lankan military pressing ahead with its offensive to destroy the LTTE in a war that has been raging for a quarter of a century.

Aid workers say more than 100,000 civilians have packed into government-run camps for the displaced after managing to flee the conflict zone.

The Tigers, listed as a "terror group" by many Western nations, have been fighting since 1983 for an ethnic Tamil state in the north and east after decades of what they call marginalisation by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.