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Wounded Sri Lankans describe chaos in north
By MANGALANATH LIYANARACHCHI,Associated Press Writer AP - 2 hours 8 minutes ago
TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka - Patients evacuated from the war zone in northeastern Sri Lanka landed Wednesday in a government-controlled town after days of navigating artillery shells and gunfire.
Until Wednesday, the group was trapped in the sliver of territory still held by the Tamil Tiger rebels. Some described trying to cross over to government territory after going hungry for days, only to face a barrage of gunfire from rebel militias.
"My wife and child got killed in the shooting by the rebels," said Selvadorai Thavakumar, 23, from Kilinochchi, the former de facto rebel capital captured by the government in January.
He was among hundreds of sick and wounded the Red Cross evacuated Tuesday by ferry from a makeshift medical facility in the northern town of Putumattalan that had been shelled.
Some 200,000 civilians are believed trapped in the shrinking rebel-held territory as the Sri Lankan military continues its campaign to crush the separatist Tamil Tigers. The government has accused the rebels of holding the civilians hostage for use as human shields against the government offensive and firing on those who flee _ a charge the rebels deny.
Determined to bring an end to a 25-year civil war that has killed some 70,000 people, the military said it has cornered the rebels in recent months and predicts the war will be over soon.
The government accused the rebels Tuesday of firing on fleeing civilians.
The rebels denied targeting civilians Wednesday and said the military was making "killing fields" of so-called safe zones inside rebel territory that the government promised not to attack.
"The 'safety zone' unilaterally announced by the Colombo government has been turned to a killing field by the Sri Lankan military," C. Ilamparithy, identified as a Tamil Tiger official, said in a statement posted on the pro-rebel Web site TamilNet.
Confirmation of the government and rebel accounts was not possible because independent journalists and most aid workers are barred from the war zone. Communication to the north has largely been severed.
Those waiting to be treated Wednesday at Trincomalee's main hospital described a scene of chaos and hardship in the war zone.
"We did not have food for days so we decided to flee to the government area. On the way, the rebels blocked us and tried to prevent us fleeing," said Manoharan Mahendran, 53, a resident of the former rebel-held town of Vishwamadu.
He said the rebels opened fire when civilians argued to be allowed to flee early last week: "People were helpless."
Still, he estimated that some 1,000 people managed to cross over safely from Vishwamadu that day. They are among tens of thousands who the government says have fled the rebel areas in recent weeks.
Mahendran said he was shot in the leg and couldn't make it. He went to the war zone's last functioning hospital in the rebel-held town of Puthukkudiyiruppu.
"While we were there, the hospital was shelled and some people were killed and others wounded," he said.
The patients were then evacuated to a makeshift medical camp before being shifted to a school in Putumattalan, he said.
Dr. Thurairajah Varatharajah, the top government health official in the war zone, said the school was horribly overcrowded and lacked essential medicines.
"(Patients) are staying in the school building and under the trees and on the floor and on the ground," he said by telephone Wednesday.
There were only two toilets for 500 people and no adequate water supply.
About four to five patients were dying every day because of the severity of their wounds or the lack of adequate care, Varatharajah said. Many more were dying outside the facility, but he said he had no estimate of how many.
The area nearby was repeatedly hit by artillery fire, he said. On Monday, shells landed near the hospital, killing 22 civilians and injuring at least 28 others, he said.
The Red Cross, the last major aid agency allowed to stay in the northeast, moved to evacuate some of the wounded by boat Tuesday.
"We are shocked that patients are not afforded the protection they are entitled to," Paul Castella, head of the Sri Lankan delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement Tuesday. Castella did not say who was behind the shelling.
Many patients arrived in Trincomalee on Wednesday in critical condition after going days without treatment, forcing surgeons to amputate in some cases. Two died, hospital officials said.
One girl lay waiting to be treated, the words "spinal injury" scrawled across the length of her arm.
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