Scores Flee Lanka Conflict Zone

Over 2,500 civilians are reported to have Sri Lanka's war zone in the last two days as government forces continued to step up pressure against Tamil Tiger rebels. The civilian exodus came soon after the military on Friday announced the capture of the biggest sea base of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The fighting is concentrated around a circle of jungle in the country's northeast, where the military says it has all but surrounded the LTTE.

Thousands of civilians - said by aid agencies, the government and a growing list of nations to be held in the war zone by the LTTE - are under grave threat of harm from the fighting.

"Today, 600 people have come up until now," Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Sri Lanka military spokesman, said on Friday.
The previous day, 1,637 escaped the fighting, he said.

The international community, including US, Britain and the European Union, has urged the LTTE to surrender, and for both sides to stop firing temporarily to allow civilians out and aid into the island’s embattled north.

Sri Lanka, however, has rejected a call by international donors for it to begin negotiating with the LTTE.
While stressing that the LTTE would not accept unconditional surrender, Damien Kingsbury, a professor at Australia's Deakin University and an expert on Sri Lanka expressed fears that captured Tiger rebels would be shot down in cold blood.

"Quite clearly they fear that if they do surrender, they will be treated very badly if not killed on the spot," said Kingsbury, he was speaking to Al Jazeera.

He added: "Tamil civilians are claiming that they are being very badly mistreated in this conflict ... and this is going to widen the gap between the government and Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority.

Sri Lankan military officials on Thursday said that following the fall of the Chalai base, the LTTE was now left with just 20km coastline in the northeastern district of Mullaittivu.
The seizure of Chalai would disrupt LTTE supplies as the sea base was used to receive arms and fuel from other countries through a widespread smuggling network.
The Sri Lankan government says that the LTTE is close to being vanquished, as the Army marches ahead towards victory in what the government has repeatedly termed a “decisive war.”
The UN and other aid agencies say more than 250,000 civilians are still trapped in the war zone.
Aid groups said the last functioning hospital there was shut down on Wednesday after being shelled for the fifth time in three days.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said staff and patients fled the hospital after the incident.

Sri Lankan troops have been engaged in an all-out offensive in recent months against the LTTE, which has been fighting for a separate Tamil heartland since 1983.