The United States has accused Sri Lanka of breaking promises to stop shelling a no-fire zone where thousands of civilians are trapped by fighting between separatists and government forces.
The top United Nations relief official Thursday repeated the world body’s concerns over the safety of civilians – numbering as high as 190,000 – trapped by fighting in northern Sri Lanka between Government forces and the LTTE.
Despite hundreds of Tamils dying in Vanni daily, Indian premier Manmohan Singh wants to ‘wait and see’ for the Rajapakse regime to put forward a devolution package, something it has not managed to do for over three years.
A statement by the UN right chief stating that both sides in Sri Lanka's conflict may have committed war crimes and must suspend fighting to let thousands of civilians escape, has been rejected by the Sri Lankan government and Tamils.
Calling for the evacuation of civilians and making them to end up in the hands of their killers, is taking side with one of the parties to the conflict and amounts to another one of the war crimes, perhaps the most serious one of them when comes from a world body of human rights, said Jaffna MP, Kajendran
B. Nadesan, the political head of the LTTE Sunday, March 15 said the Tigers had "plenty of evidences" to document that the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapakse was "intentionally directing attacks against civilians," committing war crimes and crimes against humanity
More than 25,000 Tamils, across Europe took to the streets of Brussels on Monday, 16 March, demanding EU to de-proscribe the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to exert pressure on the Sri Lankan government to allow medicine and food to the civilians besieged by its military in all fronts and to demand the Sri Lankan military to pull out from the Tamil homeland.
The Tamil Diaspora in Britain is organising a direct 'mercy mission' taking food and medicine to the civilians of Vanni, forsaken by the conscience of the International Community, said Dr. V. Arudkumar from London, on Tuesday, 10 March.
Sri Lanka has praised India for its "constructive support" to solve the Tamil ethnic problem in the island nation, saying New Delhi has taken "positive" steps unlike many other countries who are only issuing statements.
The situation in Sri Lanka, where thousands of Tamil civilians are trapped in a shrinking are in the Vanni, facing ongoing shelling and bombardment by the Sri Lankan government, permeated the 45-minute discussion on Monday, March 10, between United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon.
LTTE Black Tiger commandos and Col. Kiddu Artillery formation launched a joint attack destroying six artillery positions of the SLA in the early hours of Tuesday, confirmed an LTTE official in Vanni to TamilNet on Wednesday.
Ten thousand British Tamil expatriates paid tribute Saturday at the funeral of Murugathasan Varnakulasingham, 26, who self-immolated in front of the United Nations in Geneva in protest at the international inaction amid the mass killings of Tamils by the Sri Lankan military.
