Tamil Tiger rebels gunned down 19 people fleeing Sri Lanka's war zone for army-held areas today, the military said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had begun an operation to carry 400 sick and wounded people out of the war zone by boat, moving them to a chartered ferry with the help of local fishermen and their small boats.
The number 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 sq km.
The UN said today it was preparing to help up to 150,000 people once they came to government-controlled areas.
The UN and others say there are 250,000 civilians trapped in the war zone, but the government says the number is half that.
A military spokesman said those who reached army-held areas today 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," he 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 past week.
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 conflicts.
Reuters