The Ceylon News

Two top Indian officials met with Sri Lanka's president Friday to demand an immediate cease-fire in the bloody civil war as the U.N. reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months of fighting.

Concern for the safety of the civilians trapped in the war zone has increased in recent weeks as the government pushed ahead with its offensive to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels and end the nation's quarter-century civil war.

On Monday, the military broke through rebel fortifications on the edge of a previously declared "no-fire" zone along the northeastern coast, sparking an exodus of more than 100,000 civilians. The rebels said at least 1,000 civilians were killed in that battle and the Red Cross said hundreds had been killed or wounded.

Neighboring India, under pressure from its own Tamil population in the midst of a national election, sent National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan and Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to Sri Lanka on Friday to push for a cease-fire. The officials met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, but details of the meeting were not immediately available.

"We are very unhappy at the continued killing in Sri Lanka. All killing must stop. There must be an immediate cessation of all hostilities," External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vishu Prakash said in a statement Thursday.

The military said it was pushing ahead with its offensive, engaging the rebels in heavy fighting Thursday in the tiny coastal strip still held by the Tamil Tigers, who once controlled a vast area of northern Sri Lanka.

International rights groups have accused the government of shelling densely populated civilian areas in the war zone and accused the rebels of holding the civilians as human shields. Both sides deny the accusations.

At least 6,432 civilians were killed in the intense fighting over the past three months and 13,946 wounded, according to a private U.N. document circulated among diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka in recent days. The casualties were reported as "verified data" in the document, which was given to The Associated Press by a foreign diplomat Friday.

The U.N. has declined to publicly release its casualty figures and had no immediate comment on the document.

The level of civilian deaths has increased dramatically as the fighting has worn on, according to the U.N. An average of 33 civilians were killed each day at the end of January, a number that jumped to 116 by April, the document reported. More than 5,500 of those killed were inside a government-declared "no-fire" zone, the report said.

Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said the government took special care to avoid civilian casualties, and said many of those killed were combatants dressed in civilian clothing.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would send a team of humanitarian experts to Sri Lanka to monitor the situation. The government agreed in principal to accept such a team but the details needed to be worked out, said Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe.

More than 106,000 civilians have fled the fighting since Monday, according to the government. The Doctors Without Borders aid group said those fleeing included large numbers of people suffering from blast, mine and gunshot wounds.

Aid workers and diplomats said the mass exodus of civilians was overwhelming government facilities in the region. The reports cannot be independently verified because journalists are barred from the war zone and the camps for those displaced by the fighting.

"We're very concerned that the humanitarian provisions in place to receive these people are not sufficient to meet immediate needs," said U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss.

The rebels have been fighting to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have faced decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the ethnic Sinhalese majority.

Killinochi, April 24: Cornered LTTE chief V Prabhakaran, who is still holed up in a small strip of land in embattled north, may flee from the island using a submarine, a top Sri Lankan army official said Friday.

"Prabhakaran, who is present in the no-fire zone along with his son Charles Anthony, Tigers' intelligence chief Pottu Amman and Sea Tiger chief Soosai, might have retained a submarine to escape from the island," Brigadier Shavendra Desilva, the General-Officer-Commanding 58 Division, said.

"This was revealed by LTTE's former spokesman Daya Master, who surrendered to the army this week," Brigadier Desilva told a select group of reporters visiting LTTE's former political capital Killinochi in the embattled north.

"Prabhakaran is only supported by Amman and Soosai and other Tamil Tiger leaders will leave him if they will get an opportunity," Desilva quoted Master as saying.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan Deputy Foreign Minister Hussein Bahila while speaking with a news channel on Friday stated that because rescuing civilians was the focus of the government, the Army had not been ordered yet to attack the area where the LTTE chief was hiding.

On Prabhakaran's proposed escape via sea along with his son and two top aides, the minister said that Prabhakaran could not escape as all escape routes had been blocked.

Daya Master and George, a close aide of slain Tiger political wing head S P Thamilchelvan, gave themselves up to the army at Putumathalan in the no-fire zone on April 22.

A naval blockade was put around northern Mullaittivu close to the areas where LTTE cadres still had access to the sea.

"613 LTTE militants were killed in the first week of April," he said.

The more than 100,000 civilians pouring out of Sri Lanka's war zone have included people with untreated blast, mine and gunshot wounds — prompting the U.N. chief on Thursday to order an expert team to assess the "rapidly deteriorating situation."

Doctors Without Borders warned that civilian casualties are rising in the zone where the military is trying to finish off a 25-year-old insurgency, while the government pleaded for humanitarian aid.

"I saw infants with dysentery, malnourished children and women, untended wounds, and people dressed in the ragged clothing they've been wearing for months," said Neil Buhne, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, after returning from the northern town of Vauniya, where tens of thousands of people are kept in overcrowded government camps.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking to reporters in Brussels, said he would immediately send in a team of humanitarian experts to monitor the situation and "try to do whatever we can to protect the civilian population."

The government says 104,862 civilians have escaped the conflict since Monday.

Some 170,000 to 180,000 civilians now live in the government camps, said Gordon Weiss, the U.N. spokesman in Colombo.

An additional 15,000 to 20,000 civilians remain trapped in the coastal strip measuring just five square miles (12 square kilometers) still controlled by the ethnic separatist Tamil Tigers. Reports on life there are limited because reporters are not allowed.

Weiss said no food has been delivered to the war zone since April 1.

"The conditions are absolutely awful. The people are living with a shortage of food and medicines and subjected to artillery and small-arms fire," he said.

The U.N. Security Council has asked the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and join talks to end the civil war.

The U.N. also urged the government to give international aid agencies access to those affected by the fighting. Since September, only the International Committee of the Red Cross has had access.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said the government was working to grant more access to those who had left the war zone, but that will depend on the security situation.

The Red Cross evacuated 350 wounded to a hospital outside the war zone Wednesday, and another evacuation was planned for Thursday, Red Cross spokeswomen Sarasi Wijeratne said.

Only two ill-equipped, makeshift hospitals function in the war zone. Dr. Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi said his staff is struggling with a medicine shortage as wounded patients continue to flood in.

He said 15 people were killed Thursday when shells hit a Roman Catholic church for a second time in two days, wounding a priest whose leg had to be amputated.

Both the government and the rebels deny targeting civilians, but the U.N. estimates more than 4,500 have been killed in the past three months. The Red Cross has said it has evacuated 6,000 civilians with war injuries since January.

Doctors Without Borders said a rapidly growing number of badly wounded civilians have been arriving at a hospital near the war zone in the past few days.

"About three-quarters of the injured coming in now have suffered from blast injuries, and the rest are gunshot wounds and mine explosions," Dr. Paul McMaster said in an interview released by the Swiss-based aid group.

He said the 450-bed hospital now has more than 1,700 patients, many living on the floors, in the hallways and outside.

This week's exodus began when the military entered a previously declared "no fire" zone along the northeastern coast, breaking through a key rebel bunker on Monday and releasing a flow of fleeing people.

The government has ignored calls to stop the fighting so more civilians could leave, saying it is on the verge of crushing the insurgency.

The rebels have been fighting to create an independent homeland for ethnic minority Tamils, who have faced decades of marginalization by governments controlled by ethnic Sinhalese.

AP writers Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo and Constant Brand in Brussels contributed to this report.