Tamil Tiger rebels gunned down 19 people fleeing Sri Lanka's war zone and the bodies were carried among the more than 1,000 civilians who reported to army-held areas today, the military said.
The rate of people fleeing fighting between Sri Lanka's army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has picked up sharply in the past week, with the separatist rebels now confined to less than 175 square km.
Nearly 50,000 soldiers are converging on that area in the Indian Ocean island's northeast, aiming to deal a death blow to a civil war that has flared off and on since 1983 and is now one of Asia's longest-running.
The military said people streamed out despite a suicide blast it blamed on a female LTTE fighter disguised as a civilian, which killed 29 civilians and soldiers and wounded 90 at a refugee registration centre yesterday.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said those who reached army-held areas had told authorities the LTTE had shot at dozens of fleeing people.
"A total of 1,057 civilians arrived today. The LTTE terrorists had fired on them, killing 19 and injuring 69 others," Nanayakkara said. He said those fleeing the fighting carried the bodies with them.
That brings to 28,226 the total number of people who have escaped the war zone this year, according to the military, nearly all of them in the last week.
Aids groups say there are 250,000 civilians trapped in the war zone. The government says the number is about half that.
Reuters