Artillery fire killed at least 15 civilians sheltering from fighting in Sri Lanka today, the army said, as troops battled Tamil Tiger rebels and the island slipped back towards civil war.
More than 800 people have died this year and ambushes, air strikes and naval clashes had become commonplace, but it was a dispute over a rebel-held water supply that led to the first major ground fighting last week since a 2002 ceasefire.
The centre of fighting today was the government-held and mainly Muslim town of Mutur, just south of Trincomalee harbour in the northeast of the country. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels moved into Mutur yesterday.
"We cannot go out," Mutur resident Mrs Karunawathi (70) said, crying as intermittent firing could be heard in the background. "We have no food and just one bottle of water. We are very scared."
The army said it had largely flushed out pockets of rebel resistance by early afternoon. The military said 10 civilians were killed when a shell fell near a college housing people displaced by the fighting. Five more were killed when another Muslim school was hit.
The Tigers said the shells had been fired by the army. Residents said both sides had shelled the town. The army said one soldier was killed in action while pro-rebel website www.tamilnet.com said 12 Tiger fighters died. It also said the Tigers, whose ultimate goal is a homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east, were preparing to hand over the corpses of 40 soldiers to the Red Cross.
The organisation said it had not been approached. Death tolls are difficult to verify and diplomats say both sides are understating their losses and exaggerating those of the enemy. In the fighting south of Trincomalee, the military says it has killed more than 70 rebels for the loss of only a handful of troops in the past week.
Wounded civilians and servicemen trickled into a hospital in Trincomalee city as artillery, multi-barrelled rockets and jet fighters pounded rebel positions