Rajiva Wijesinha, permanent secretary in Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Disaster Management and Human Rights, told a British newspaper, The Guardian, that earlier reports of many as 20,000 civilians being killed in the end stages of the years-long Tamil Tigers uprising were unverified and wrong.

“I would estimate it altogether at 3,000 to 5,000,” Wijesinha said, blaming the deaths on the rebels’ use of refugees as human shields. “The Tigers had prepared this hostage situation and the figures went up very badly.”

The United Nations and other countries had accused Sri Lanka of using heavy weaponry against the remaining rebels cornered in a “no-fire zone” along with civilians. Wijesinha said 81mm mortars were used against the Tigers, who he said were firing heavy weapons, including tanks, at the government forces.

Sri Lankan civilian toll said up to 5,000

The call by the rights group followed a report in the Times of London newspaper on Friday citing confidential UN reports that more than 20,000 civilians were killed by Sri Lankan army shelling.

The report followed weeks of allegations that large numbers of civilians had been killed as the army closed in on Tamil Tiger rebels to end the decades- long war.

Amnesty’s Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi accused both sides of war crimes and called for an independent international probe.

“The Times report underscores the need for this investigation and the UN should do everything it can to determine the truth about the ?bloodbath? that occurred in northeast Sri Lanka,” Zarifi said in statement.

The statement said the UN “must immediately publicise its estimate of the number of civilians killed by the two sides in the final weeks of fighting”.

Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe dismissed Amnesty’s call and said the organisation was being “ridiculous to keep harping on things they cannot substantiate,” he told AFP by telephone from Geneva.

The Colombo-based government, which has rejected demands by the UN Human Rights Council for a fact-finding mission on the war crimes allegations, on Friday angrily dismissed the Times report.

“These figures are way out,” defence ministry spokesman Lakshman Hulugalle said. “We totally deny the allegation that 20,000 people were killed.”

Amnesty said, however, that it continues to receive reports of widespread human rights violations, with more than 280,000 people displaced by the recent fighting and now restricted to state-run welfare camps in the island’s north.

“The UN must address the war crimes and grave human rights violations that have occurred — and could still be occurring — in Sri Lanka,” Zarifi said.

He said that despite repeated calls, the Sri Lankan government continued to restrict access to the camps by international humanitarian organisations, including the UN and the Red Cross.

“I am appealing to all these rights groups to let us get on with the job of resettling these people in their homes in the quickest possible time,” Samarasinghe said.

The island’s military claimed complete victory over separatist Tamil Tigers after wiping out the guerrillas’ leadership nearly two weeks ago.

Amnesty calls for probe of Sri Lanka civilian deaths

The Sri Lankan Government has blocked access to aid workers trying to help the nearly 300,000 civilians displaced by the army’s victory over the Tamil Tigers, raising the prospect of a humanitarian catastrophe.

In the capital, Colombo, President Rajapakse announced the “complete defeat” of the rebels yesterday as state television showed pictures of what was said to be the corpse of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ leader. Mr Rajapakse vowed in an address to the nation to press ahead with a “homegrown political solution” to end ethnic divisions between the majority Sinhalese population and minority Tamils.

As he spoke, an estimated 80,000 people — mostly Tamil, many of them sick, malnourished or suffering from battlefield wounds — were making their way on foot from the war zone In the north to government-run camps that are already swamped. The UN is not being allowed any access to them, The Times has learnt.

Accounts of conditions inside the camps — gained from testimony recorded covertly by aid workers — and the journey to them are horrifying.

Preema, a Tamil woman, arrived at the 400-hectare (990-acre) Menic farm camp on Sunday. She had left Mullaivaikal, the centre of the fighting, where the Tigers had made their final stand before being defeated, days before, after being shelled heavily.

She set out with her husband, mother and two children, to wade through the Nandikadal lagoon — a waterway strewn with mines — in a desperate attempt to reach safety.

There were deep craters where the lagoon had been bombed and people often drowned, she said. A man offered to carry her ten-year-old daughter. Preema never saw them again. Her husband was taken away later by government troops at a checkpoint in Oomanthai, where refugees are being forced to strip before being allowed to pass, after admitting that he had worked for the Tigers. Her mother died in the lagoon.

“Everything is lost,” said Preema, holding her son, 7. “Please help me find my daughter. Not knowing anything is making me crazy.”

Inside one camp, Nandani, 76, described being forced to stand for up to five hours a day queueing for food.

Kala, a middle-aged woman, spoke about the constant indignities of her new life. “I do not have underwear. I am unable to use the Kotex that the Red Cross handed out,” she said, holding a packet of sanitary towels she had been given before the organisation’s access to the camp was restricted.

Kothai, another woman, said: “There is a bad distribution system within the camp. Every time it is the same people that get \. Men crowd around and push the women and children aside.”

Government officials did not answer requests for comment. Access for aid agencies to another 200,000 refugees already in the internment camps — which the Government call “welfare villages” — has been severely restricted since Sunday, preventing the administration of basic care.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, is due to travel in Sri Lanka on Friday to offer help to rebuild the ravaged northeast of the country and urge the Government to reach out to the Tamil population.

“These people have endured one of the cruellest military sieges of modern times — daily shelling over several months,” an international aid worker said. “They need urgent help.” There are fears that the camp populations — especially children — will be hit by contagious diseases. Chickenpox, hepatitis A and dysentery outbreaks have been reported. Medical facilities are said to be woefully inadequate.

There are also concerns that the suffering will radicalise previously moderate Tamils, especially amongst the community’s international diaspora, which had been a key source of funding for the Tigers.

Most Sri Lankans are delighted by the defeat of the Tigers, a terrorist force that fought for 26 years for an independent Tamil homeland, propagating a war that left at least 70,000 dead. Many Tamils were against the rebels after they recruited child soldiers and terrorised their own people.

Tamils in the camps describe being fired on by both sides in the conflict.

Vavathan, 59, said that Tiger troops had forcibly recruited children as young as 15 in the conflict zone, even in the final stages when it was clear that they had lost the conflict. “The war was over, why were they still taking the children?” she asked.

There were doubts over the sincerity of Mr Rajapakse’s pledge to build bridges between the Sinhalese and Tamil minority. He has seldom brooked dissent, his opponents say.

Sri Lanka on brink of catastrophe as UN aid blocked

Ban spoke to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on the telephone Tuesday night amid heavy international pressure for a humanitarian cease-fire in the conflict. Rajapaksa has brushed off such calls, saying a truce would give the rebels a chance to regroup.

The government has cornered the remaining rebel fighters — along with tens of thousands of civilians — in a narrow coastal strip in the north and stands on the brink of victory after a nearly quarter-century civil war.

Speaking to reporters in New York, Ban said he asked Rajapaksa for “a humanitarian pause in the fighting” to allow aid into the conflict zone and urged the government to stop using heavy weapons in areas heavily populated by civilians.

“I repeat: Protecting civilians and respecting international humanitarian law, must be priority one. The world is watching events closely, including for violations of international law,” he said.

The government pledged last week to stop using artillery fire and air strikes, but health officials in the war zone say such attacks have continued.

Ban also said the Tamil Tigers should let the estimated 50,000 civilians trapped by the fighting out of the war zone and to stop forcibly recruiting fighters from their ranks.

“Above all, there is an urgent need for the two sides to bring the conflict to a peaceful and orderly end,” he said.

The appeal came as a British parliamentary delegation finished a two-day tour of the country and a Canadian Cabinet minister also visited. Last week the British and French foreign ministers traveled here to personally press for a humanitarian truce.

The intense fighting since the end of January has killed about 6,500 civilians, according to a U.N. document compiled last month. Hundreds of more civilians have been reported killed since then.

During the phone conversation, Rajapaksa invited Ban to visit the country and personally assess the situation, according to a statement from the president’s office. U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said no decision had been made on such a visit.

The rebels said in a statement Tuesday that civilians trapped in the war zone were facing starvation and accused the government of blocking food deliveries. Health officials in the area have also said the elderly and children were suffering and dying in increasing numbers because of lack of food.

Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe said the government had delivered enough food and accused the rebels of grabbing the supplies for themselves.

Reporters and independent observers are barred from the war zone making the government’s claims difficult to verify.

The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils, which have suffered decades of marginalization at the hands of governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

UN calls for cease-fire in Sri Lanka civil war

In the third day since troops blasted through a massive earthen wall built by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and unleashed the exodus, the military said 81,420 people had been registered for onward transit to refugee camps.

The massive civilian presence in a 17 square km (6.5 sq mile) area had been the last crucial defence for the Tigers, who have refused repeated calls from the United Nations, Western governments and neighbouring India to release them.

Sri Lanka’s government has meanwhile rejected LTTE and international calls for a truce, saying it cannot allow a group designated as a terrorist organisation by more than 30 countries to use the time to rearm, as it has done in the past.

By Wednesday morning, troops had captured about a third of the remaining Tiger-held area, which had been an army-declared no-fire zone until soldiers marched in and turned it into the conflict’s final conventional battlefield after people fled.

“Confrontations are taking place. Whenever we come across LTTE cadres, we are fighting them. The rescue operation is continuing,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.

Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella later told a media briefing troops had taken control of about a third of the area, after seizing the centre of the north-south strip of coast and dividing the remaining rebel fighters into two pockets. Nanayakkara said 153,000 civilians have fled LTTE areas so far this year.

UN CONFIRMS EXODUS

The United Nations confirmed this week’s outflow.

“It is 60,000 plus and counting, and we have heard various reports of up to 110,000 coming out,” said U.N. spokesman in Colombo, Gordon Weiss. He cautioned the reports were preliminary and not confirmed.

So far, only 7,500 had reached refugee centres away from the front in Jaffna and Vavuniya towns, while the rest were in transit, he said.

Aid agencies have warned refugee camp conditions could quickly turn bad with the populations doubling, but Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered extra food and reliefs supplies to be sent.

On Tuesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross had said the war zone situation was “catastrophic”, with several hundred killed since Monday and at least 50,000 more remaining at risk with limited food, water and medical care.

The United Nations and others have accused the LTTE of forcing people to stay in the war zone or making them fight, and the government of shelling civilian areas. Both deny the accusations.

Senior U.S. diplomat Michael Owen urged Sri Lanka to allow the international community to monitor what was happening and assure help for trapped civilians.

“The 26-year-old conflict is at a decisive point and we see the potential for major developments witin the next 48 hours,” he told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

The military operation to rescue the civilians began on Monday and gathered speed on Tuesday after the LTTE ignored a noon deadline to surrender, despite being massively outgunned by a military built up to wipe them out and end the war.

A senior LTTE official hours later said the group would never surrender nor give up its drive to create a separate state for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils, which has percolated since the early 1970s but erupted into full-blown civil war in 1983.

After the conventional end of the war, Sri Lanka will face the challenges of healing divisions between the Tamil minority and Sinhalese majority, and boosting a $40 billion economy suffering on many fronts including a weakening rupee .LKR.

Sri Lanka is seeking a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund loan to ease a balance of payments crisis and boost flagging foreign exchange reserves.

But the government’s war successes have driven the Colombo Stock Exchange .CSE to two-month highs. (For more Sri Lanka coverage, click on [ID:nSP493680]; for a graphic see: here. jpg) (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed in WASHINGTON; Editing by Jerry Norton)

Sri Lankan war in endgame, 81,000 escape rebel zone

The government has denied the allegations, in turn accusing the rebel group of targeting civilians.

The army has said at least 25,000 civilians have fled the Tamil Tiger-held area.

The rebels have so far rejected government calls to surrender, or face a final assault.

The rebel spokesman, who gave his name as Thileepan, spoke to the BBC by telephone with the sound of explosions in the background.

He said a hospital, an orphanage and many houses had been hit and huge numbers of civilians had been killed in a military onslaught of the area.

He said people had been reduced to hiding under logs and trees and using makeshift bunkers dug into the sand.

‘Human avalanche’

The Sri Lankan military has denied shelling civilians inside the rebel-held area.

Army spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told the BBC that only small-arms had been used.

He said the Tigers were targeting civilians because they knew that if non-combatants left, the rebels would be “sitting ducks”.

The army says three rebel suicide bombings had targeted fleeing civilians, killing 17.

One Tamil man who had just left the conflict zone said the rebels tried to shoot anyone planning to escape.

Local newspapers are covered with pictures of large numbers of people leaving rebel territory, says the BBC’s Charles Haviland in Colombo.

One calls the process a “human avalanche”.

People escaped after troops broke through a fortification which had been blocking their advance into the Tigers’ last stronghold, the army said on Monday.

Aerial video showed thousands of people filing out of the combat zone. Tens of thousands remain in the area, which has seen heavy fighting for months.

The pro-rebel TamilNet website said several hundred civilians were feared killed and injured after troops advanced into the zone.

Each side accuses the other of killing civilians in the long running civil conflict.

Foreign reporters are not allowed into the combat zone, making it impossible to independently verify the claims.

The Tigers are restricted to a 20 sq km (12.4 sq miles) coastal patch that the government has designated a “safe zone” for civilians.

Gordon Weis, the UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, said it was not known how many civilians remained there but that the UN had been working off a figure of some 150,000 to 200,000 people in recent months.

Our correspondent says life for the Tamil civilians in the zone is a nightmare.

There has been shelling for months, while the UN says the Tigers are preventing people from escaping, despite rebel denials.

The government is not giving the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to the landward side of the zone.

So it can only evacuate people by sea, with two or three ships per week each carrying 400 or 500 of the sickest, oldest and most badly wounded people.

Sri Lanka army accused of carnage

This is the toughest statement issued by the UN’s top human rights official on the conduct of the war in Sri Lanka. Navi Pillay said she is extremely alarmed at the increasing number of civilians reported killed and injured in the conflict in northern Sri Lanka.

Her spokesman, Rupert Colville, said High Commissioner Pillay is very upset at the apparent ruthless disregard shown by positions.

“Other areas holding civilians have also been shelled. A range of credible sources have indicated that more than 2,800 civilians have been killed and 7,500 injured since the 20th of January, many of them inside the no-fire zones. The casualties are believed to include hundreds of children killed and more than 1,000 injured,” he said.

The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for an independent state for more than one-quarter of a century. About 70,000 people are estimated to have been killed and tens of thousands made homeless in this long-running civil war.

A few months ago, the Sri Lankan military began an all-out offensive to defeat the rebels once and for all. By all accounts, they appear to be winning. But, victory is coming with a very heavy price in civilian casualties.

Colville said the United Nations estimates up to 180,000 civilians remain trapped in an every-shrinking area of territory in the Vanni region.

“The current level of civilian casualties, which could be more than 10,000 in all, if you add the killed and injured, is truly shocking. And, there are legitimate fears that the loss of life may reach catastrophic levels, if the fighting continues in this way,” Colville said. “The LTTE, the Tamil Tigers, are reported to be continuing to hold civilians as human shields, and to have shot at civilians trying to leave the area they control. They are also believed to have been forcibly recruiting civilians, including children, as soldiers,” he said.

UN aid agencies reported that there is limited food in the Vanni region. They said severe malnutrition is on the rise and key medical supplies are virtually gone.

High Commissioner Pillay called the brutal and inhuman treatment of civilians by the Tamil Tigers utterly reprehensible and said it should be examined to see if it constitutes war crimes.

The rebels have not commented. But, the Sri Lankan government said it is very disappointed in. what it called, the unprofessional statement by the High Commissioner.

UN Rights Chief Accuses Sri Lanka And Tamil Tigers of Possible War Crimes

Gunmen have attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team on its way to play in the Pakistani city of Lahore. At least five policemen escorting the team bus were killed, along with a driver….

The poor security for the visitors and the ease with which the terrorists were able to target the team, has further isolated both Pakistan as a global hub of terrorism and a venue for international cricket.

President Asif Zardari was forced to apologise to his Sri Lankan counterpart yesterday for the lack of protection, while the International Cricket Council officials said it was unlikely that international cricket matches could be played in Pakistan again until the security situation has dramatically improved.

The revelation that security warnings for such a sensitive match will fuel further criticism. Sri Lanka had stepped in to play Pakistan after India withdraw following last november’s attack on Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists. The Sri Lankans came under intense pressure to pull out from India amid concerns about the country’s poor security situation.

A leaked report from Punjab’s Crime Investigation Department (CID), passed to Pakistani papers reveals that authorities were warned almost six weeks ago, of a plot and urged the all security agencies in the state and federal governments to take special precautions to protect the visitors.

The report identifies the Indian intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), as the force behind the plot – an accusation regularly traded between India and Pakistan – but specifically identified the drive between their hotel and the stadium as the scene of the attack.

Pakistani newspapers quoted the report, dated January 22nd 2009, warning:”It has reliably been learnt that RAW (Indian intelligence agency) has assigned its agents the task to target Sri Lankan cricket team during its current visit to Lahore, especially while travelling between the hotel and stadium or at hotel during their stay.

“It is evident that RAW intends to show Pakistan a security risk state for sports events, particularly when the European and the Indian teams have already postponed their proposed visits considering it a high security risk to visit Pakistan .Extreme vigilance and heightened security arrangements indicated.” A further letter from Punjab’s then chief minister Shahbaz Sharif’s office to Lahore’s Inspector-General of Police and security ministers, requested extra security protection for the tourists. “The chief minister has seen the enclosed source report and has desired that every effort may be made for the security of the Sri Lankan cricket team during its current visit to Lahore. He has further desired that extreme vigilance and heightened security arrangement may be made to avert any untoward incident,” his officials wrote.

The correspondence and the ‘secret report’ have been leaked in a new political row over who is to blame. Sharif was forced to stand down as chief minister shortly before the attack after a Supreme Court ruling that he had been ineligible to stand for the post. His government was dismissed and President Asif Ali Zadari imposed the state’s governor Salman Taseer as acting chief executive.

Sri Lankan cricketers: Pakistan ‘ignored’ warnings about attack on team bus

While police continued to scour the eastern city of Lahore for the gunmen, all of whom escaped, the government of the eastern province of Punjab appealed for help from the public in most national newspapers.

Officers announced today that they had arrested “some suspects” behind the attack, but the gunmen were still at large.

“The dignity of the country has been hurt,” the Punjab government said, alongside blurred images of the gunmen grabbed from CCTV footage.

“Assist us in identifying the terrorists who fired at the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.”

As the hunt for the gunmen continued, Haji Habibur Rehman, Lahore police chief, said that none of those detained in the city had directly carried out the attack. He did not say how many had been arrested.

“So far we have not made any headway toward the perpetrators,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

Pakistani officials say yesterday’s attack outside Lahore’s Gaddafi stadium bore all the hallmarks of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group blamed for a similar commando-style attack on Mumbai in November.

However, several have hinted at a “foreign hand” in the attack, fuelling speculation among ordinary Pakistanis – despite a complete lack of evidence – that India carried out the attack as revenge for the Mumbai attacks.

One newspaper printed what appeared to be a fake report from the Punjab police’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) warning in January that India’s intelligence agency might try to attack the Indian cricket team.

The report, dated January 22, 2009, says that India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) “has assigned its agents the task to target Sri Lankan cricket team during its current visit to Sri Lanka, especially while travelling between the hotel and stadium.”

It appears to be signed by Malik Muhammad Iqbal, the additional Inspector General of Police, CID Punjab.

When contacted by The Times, Mr Iqbal declined to confirm or deny the authenticity of the report.

“That is something which has been leaked,” he said. “I cannot comment on intelligence matters.”

Other Punjab police officials declined to comment.

Several security experts and political analysts said the report was clearly a fake, designed to deflect attention from LeT and to shift blame onto the federal government that took charge of Punjab last week.

It nonetheless illustrates how Pakistan’s charged political climate contributes to the popular sense of denial about the threat posed by the al Qaeda and Taleban militants sheltering near its border with Afghanistan.

Asif Ali Zardari, the President, vowed today to continue the fight against the militants who are also blamed for the assassination of his wife, the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, in December 2007.

“This is an existential battle,” he said in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal. “If we lose, so too will the world. Failure is not an option.”

However, Western diplomats fear that he is being undermined by members of Pakistan’s powerful army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency who have links to LeT and other militant groups.

One former ISI chief with clear Islamist sympathies has even speculated publicly that yesterday’s attack could have been carried out by Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, backed by Indian intelligence, as a payback for Mumbai.

“It’s all too obvious that it is the handiwork of the Indian intelligence,” said retired general Hamid Gul.

Despite the lack of supporting evidence, such theories easily gain credence among ordinary Pakistanis stunned at the attack on their most cosmopolitan city – and a sport that is a national obsession.

“Pakistanis could not do this,” was a typical response from Shazia Sardar, a 28-year-old immigration officer. “The people who did this were not Muslims.”

However, most serious Pakistani commentators dismissed talk of an Indian conspiracy and urged the government to confront the homegrown militants who have ruined Pakistan’s reputation as a sporting venue.

“The worst thing that can happen to a state is to go into denial. How long will we deny that we have groups that have run amok and whose obvious agenda involves destroying Pakistan as a nation state?” wrote Ejaz Haider in the Daily Times.

“To point to India… without bothering to look at other evidence for which we now have a long trajectory, is not simply ignorance; it is deliberate perfidy.”

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s cricketers were being welcomed home by tearful relatives and the country’s sports minister, Gamini Lokuge, amid tight security at the international airport in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.

“I never thought I will be able to come home alive,” said Mahela Jayawardene, the team captain, as he was greeted by his relieved wife Christina.

Batsmen Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana, who were both hit by bullets, were among the first of the 25-member touring party to leave the airport to be taken to a private hospital in Colombo.

“Both of them may need further treatment and surgery,” said Geethanjana Mendis, a sports medicine specialist who assessed their injuires before they flew home.

He said the entire team needed medical evaluation, but none of the injuries were life threatening.

Six players and a British assistant coach were hurt in yesterday’s attack, which also left six Pakistani policemen and two civilians dead, including one of the team convoy’s drivers.

In Washington last night, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, offered his sympathy to the victims of the attack but said Pakistan must be seen to be dealing with the ‘terrorist problem in its midst.’

“My first thoughts are with those who died and those who have been casualties as a result of this terrorist attack,” he said.

“Obviously, when people are competing in sport and suddenly there’s a terrorist attack, it is all the more tragic.

“What we have to do is to make sure that action against terrorism in Pakistan is effective. We know that the vast majority of al Qaida fighters are in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.

“We know that there are groups in Pakistan that are terrorist groups that need to be brought under control, arrested and brought to trial.

“I have been pressing for some time the Pakistan government to make sure that arrests happen, terrorists are brought under control and Pakistan is seen to be fulfilling its role in the world community in dealing with the terrorist problem in its midst.”

Pakistan offers $125,000 bounty for terrorists who attacked cricketers