Sri Lanka’s military reports rescuing 5,000 civilians from remaining rebel territory

May 16th, 2009 COLOMBO - Civilians continued Saturday to pour out of the last rebel-held area in northeastern Sri Lanka after security forces Saturday took the final strip of coast held by Tamil Tigers in the final phase of their offensive to defeat the guerrillas and end the more than 25-year conflict, military officials said. An estimated 5,000 civilians left Saturday, pushing up the total to have fled the area in two days to 17,500.

May 2nd, 2009 Doctor: 64 dead in shelling of Sri Lanka hospitalCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Artillery shells hit a makeshift hospital in Sri Lanka's northern war zone Saturday, killing at least 64 civilians, a government doctor and a rebel-linked Web site said, amid growing international pressure to safeguard thousands of civilians trapped in the area. The TamilNet Web site accused government forces of shelling the hospital at Mullivaaykkaal.

April 22nd, 2009 COLOMBO - Refugees streamed out of the shrinking Tamil rebel-held areas again Wednesday as government troops tightened a cordon around the zone in north-eastern Sri Lanka, military spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said. Rambukwella told journalists that 81,420 civilian refugees had been counted since Monday in the Puthumathalan area, about 390 km north-east of the capital, and the exodus was continuing.

April 22nd, 2009 Sri Lanka refuses to pardon rebel leaderCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's president has ruled out a pardon for the Tamil Tiger rebels' leader if he's captured alive by government soldiers now advancing into the last remaining rebel territory. A statement quotes President Mahinda Rajapaksa as saying he was ready to pardon the reclusive guerrilla leader Velupillai Prabhakaran if he had surrendered to the armed forces.

April 21st, 2009 COLOMBO - Tamil rebels claimed Tuesday that as many as 1,000 civilians were killed and 2,300 injured in military operations carried out in northern Sri Lanka since Monday, prompting nearly 50,000 to flee the area. The rebels made an urgent appeal to the UN and international organisations, saying civilian casualties were mounting due the Sri Lankan army's move to evacuate civilians from the war zone.

April 21st, 2009 COLOMBO - Civilians fled Tamil rebel-held areas in north-eastern Sri Lanka for a second consecutive day Tuesday, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said the exact number of civilians who arrived from the rebel-held areas in Puthumathalan, 390 km north-east of Colombo were not known but people were continuing to arrive in military-controlled areas.

April 20th, 2009 COLOMBO - Over 5,000 civilians Monday fled Sri Lanka's northern war-zone and entered the government-held areas as troops continued to advance towards the last stronghold of the Tamil Tigers as part of their 'hostage rescue mission', a military spokesman here said. 'A record 5,000 besieged civilians in the Puthumathalan No Fire Zone (NFZ) escaped from the grip of the LTTE and reached the army-held areas in Puthukkudiyiruppu early this (Monday) morning,' Military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara told IANS.

April 20th, 2009 COLOMBO - Troops stormed a coastal village in north-eastern Sri Lanka Monday and rescued about 5,000 civilians who had been prevented by Tamil rebels from going to military-controlled areas, military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said troops broke through an earthen barrier in Puthumathalan village, 390 km north-east of the capital, in the early hours of Monday and rescued the civilians, including a large number of women and children.

April 20th, 2009 Sri Lanka says 35,000 people flee rebelsCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka's president says the army has rescued 35,000 civilians from a sliver of territory controlled by Tamil rebels. President Mahinda Rajapaksa says the civilians were freed from an area in the north designated as a "no-fire" zone that is under rebel control.

April 20th, 2009 Sri Lanka military reports saving 5,000 civiliansCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan troops rescued 5,000 civilians from the small sliver of territory in the war-ravaged north on Monday, the military said. The government has designated the area a "no-fire" zone to protect what the United Nations estimates are 100,000 civilians trapped there.

April 19th, 2009 Sri Lanka: 17 rebels dead in clashes to clear roadCOLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan soldiers killed 17 Tamil Tiger separatists in fighting to clear a road that would give the military access to remaining rebel territory where thousands of civilians are trapped, the Defense Ministry said. The rebels, who once controlled a de facto state in parts of the country's north and east, have retreated to a tiny slice of land that the government had earlier declared a "no-fire zone" for civilians fleeing the fighting in the island's nation's civil war.

March 19th, 2009 COLOMBO - The Sri Lankan Navy has rescued a group of civilians fleeing the Tamil Tigers' last pocket in the northern Mullaittivu district, the military said Wednesday. Some 550 civilians on 31 boats were fleeing Mullaittivu's Puttumatalan area Tuesday evening, heading for the northern Jaffna peninsula when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) sea wing tried to stop them.

February 11th, 2009 COLOMBO - Hundreds of civilians fleeing the fighting between Tamil separatist rebels and the government attempted to enter government-controlled areas in northern Sri Lanka but were driven by guerillas back into rebel-held territory, military officials said Wednesday. Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said civilians who were heading toward the military's forward defence lines were beaten by the rebels and sent deeper into rebel-held areas.

February 9th, 2009 COLOMBO - The BBC World Service Tuesday stopped providing radio news to Sri Lanka's state broadcaster because of what it calls 'deliberate interference' by government censors. A statement from the BBC said that its FM broadcasts to the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corp (SLBC) had been suspended with effect from Tuesday.

January 8th, 2009 COLOMBO - Three air force personnel and four civilians were killed Friday morning in a Claymore mine explosion carried out by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels in eastern Sri Lanka, an official said. Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara said that they were killed when the bus they were travelling in came under attack at about 9.30 a.m.