Civilians flee on foot as SL fighting rages

Villagers flee their homes to a refugee camp at Serunuwara, near the northeastern town of Trincomalee yesterday. Thousands of Muslims were fleeing Sri Lanka's heaviest fighting in years as troops and Tamil Tiger rebels blocked aid from reaching the area bearing the brunt of the conflict. PHOTO: AFP

Small pockets of rebels continued firefights with troops in the eastern Muslim town of Mutur, where aid workers say between 20,000-30,000 people have been trapped by the fighting.

Tamil Tigers also attacked army camps and Norway's peace envoy flew in to discuss the future of Nordic truce monitors as the island slides back to civil war.

"The people are confused and don't know what to do. The problem is they are stuck at an army checkpoint," said Yvonne Dunton, head of the Trincomalee office of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Around 6,700 families were on foot, she added.

Aid trucks organised by local groups drove east towards the southern end of Mutur carrying food and water, white flags flying from their windows.

At least 20 civilians, 12 Tigers and one soldier were killed on Thursday. The military says it has killed more than 70 rebels in the past week and the Tigers say they have the bodies of 40 troops ready to hand over. But each side dismisses the other's claims.

"(The Tigers) are attacking our camps in the east. There is artillery and mortar fire," said military spokesman Major Upali Rajapakse. "There are some civilians being injured."

"There are some Tigers in Mutur town. They are trying to move west into certain areas they control."

There were other isolated attacks in the north-central district of Vavuniya and in the eastern district of Batticaloa, where a breakaway rebel faction attacked a camp of the mainstream Tigers, killing five fighters.

Amid fears the fighting could spread to the Sinhalese-majority south, police arrested two suspected rebel fighters in a lorry carrying claymore mines and hand grenades in the port town of Galle 100km south of Colombo.

The fighting is the most intense and prolonged since a 2002 truce and diplomats and some military personnel say the civil war that began in 1983 appears to have resumed in all but name.

Well over 800 people have been killed so far this year in escalating attacks and military clashes between the army and the Tigers, who are furious at President Mahinda Rajapakse's outright rejection of their demand for a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east.