U.N. faults Sri Lanka and rebels
Both sides must stop fighting and allow civilians to escape, an official said.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Both government forces and Tamil rebels may be breaking international humanitarian laws and must suspend their fighting to allow thousands of civilians to escape, the U.N. human-rights chief said yesterday.
The civilians are caught in a shrinking rebel enclave in the island's war-ravaged north, which government troops are battling to capture to end a 25-year civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebels.
"Certain actions being undertaken by the Sri Lankan military and by the LTTE may constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law," U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement.
She said the army had repeatedly shelled inside safe zones set up for the civilians, and "a range of credible sources" showed that more than 2,800 civilians had been killed and more than 7,000 wounded since Jan. 20.
Both figures are higher than previous estimates, and Pillay said that 150,000 to 180,000 remained trapped in the rebel area on Sri Lanka's northeastern coast.
"The current level of civilian casualties is truly shocking," said Pillay, a former U.N. war-crimes judge, "and there are legitimate fears that the loss of life may reach catastrophic levels, if the fighting continues in this way."
The government denied allegations that it had harmed civilians. It accused rebels of using the civilians as human shields in a desperate attempt to avoid being defeated.
"We have very clearly stated that we have not at any time fired at the no-fire zone," said Mahinda Samarasinghe, the minister for disaster management and human rights.
He said Pillay should have appealed to the rebels to let the civilians go.
"We are perplexed and dumbfounded that the real issue has not been commented on," Samarasinghe said.
Pillay's statement did accuse the Tamil Tigers, who have fought since 1983 to establish a separate state in the north and east, of possible war crimes by using civilians as human shields and shooting at people trying to flee.
"The brutal and inhuman treatment of civilians by the LTTE is utterly reprehensible," Pillay said, "and should be examined to see if it constitutes war crimes."