International community urged to rein in on Sri Lanka over Tamil civilian deaths
Hundreds of civilians – including many children, women and elderly persons – have been killed and wounded during the Sri Lanka Army artillery barrage using multi barrel rocket launchers in Vanni, Sri Lanka North on Monday Jan 26th.
Many of the dying, sick and wounded are being treated at make shift clinics in Mullaithivu district. Mullaithivu district has always been short of vital medical supplies and personnel because of the crippling restrictions by Government of Sri Lanka. But the latest artillery attack has pushed the health services to breaking point.
Civil society sources described the situation as “a real massacre” and “catastrophic”.
In the aftermath of the carnage, Parliamentarians belonging to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in an urgent press statement has renewed their call upon the international community to use all its influence with the Government of Sri Lankan to bring an immediate end to the “massacre of Tamil civilians”.
The TNA further appeals that the international community intervenes to secure immediate medical supplies and medical personnel to be sent to treat the affected civilians.
26 January 2009
URGENT APPEAL
The Sri Lankan State has announced “Safe Zones” within Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) administered areas where civilians have been asked to move into for their safety. Over the last few days civilians have been concentrating into these areas. Despite the Sri Lankan State declaring these areas “Safe Zones” the Sri Lankan Armed Forces have been bombing these areas causing many civilian deaths and injuries.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) reliably learns from medical sources in the affected areas that within the last 48 hours the Sri Lankan Armed Forces have launched non-stop bombing campaigns on these self-declared “Safe Zones”. It is estimated that several hundred shells have been fired reportedly causing over 300 civilian deaths and about 500 persons been gravely injured.
The TNA also learns that due to the continuous shelling even the dead and the injured are unable to be transported to the makeshift hospitals that have been setup by the medical staff. Further, the medical supplied and personnel are grossly inadequate to cope with the current number of casualties.
There can be little doubt that if immediate steps are not taken to stop the shelling, and emergency medical supplies and medical personnel not sent into the affected areas, there would be many more hundred civilian deaths as a result of lack of treatment.
Under these dire circumstances the TNA calls upon the international community to use all its influence with the Sri Lankan State to bring an immediate end to the massacre of these Tamil civilians. The TNA further appeals that the international community intervenes to secure immediate medical supplies and medical personnel to be sent to treat the affected civilians. The TNA reiterates that these steps must be taken within the next 24 hours if the civilian death toll is not to increase to several more hundreds.
