The civilian death toll during the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war was between 3,000 and 5,000, a senior government official estimated Thursday.
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.

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 …

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Sri Lanka to stop using heavy weapons that risk civilian lives and to suspend its offensive against ethnic Tamil rebels so that desperately needed aid can be sent to the war zone.
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.

Thousands more civilians surged out of Sri Lanka’s war zone on Wednesday, while soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels fought the apparent endgame of Asia’s longest-running war despite calls to protect those still trapped.
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 …

Sri Lanka’s military said Tuesday it was trying to establish how the Tamil Tigers managed to buy light planes abroad, smuggle them onto the island and establish a rebel air force.
The probe follows the latest Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) air assault against the capital using two of their Czech-made aircraft.
The military shot down one aircraft just before it reached the intended target at the main airbase, while the second plane crashed into a tax building here on Friday night and exploded in a ball of fire.
“At this stage …

Sri Lankan security forces have killed at least 65 Tamil Tigers in a week of intense fighting that further reduced the territory under rebel control, according to the military.
The Tigers have been driven back into just 73 square kilometres (28 square miles) of jungle, military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said, having controlled large swathes of the north and the east of the island less than two years ago.
Officials say the rebels are increasingly desperate and may launch more attacks such as the air strike on the capital Colombo on Friday, when …

The Sri Lankan army says it has captured the last major naval base of Tamil Tiger rebels in the north-east of the island.
It says that about 15 rebel fighters – including three senior commanders – were killed in the fighting at Chalai. There has been no independent confirmation of the report, and no comment from the rebels. Earlier, the government said there would be no ceasefire with the rebels, despite international calls for talks.
Military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said that with the capture of Chalai, the army had now brought …

Patients are fleeing a hospital that was hit four times by artillery shells in the war between Tamil Tigers and government forces in northern Sri Lanka this week, the Red Cross said Tuesday.
The development came as independent observers handed The Associated Press dramatic pictures and video, showing scores of civilians killed or maimed. The images offered a rare glimpse of the growing toll the civil war is taking on the estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the all-but-sealed conflict zone.

As the Sri Lankan military continued to push into a small corner of the island controlled by separatist guerrillas, three separate artillery attacks on Sunday struck a hospital overflowing with wounded patients, the last of them hitting a ward of women and children, according to international agencies and health workers. At least nine people were killed and 20 were wounded and the dead were still being counted Monday morning.

Pressure is building on Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tiger rebels to protect thousands of civilians caught up in the fighting on the island.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has expressed deep concern over the fate of the civilians – the UN says dozens are dead or injured.
And the European Union has asked the government to ensure that the civilians are spared in the fighting.
Sri Lanka’s army has pushed the rebels from their strongholds.