UN humanitarian chief warns Sri Lanka situation 'dire'

(April 25, 2009) The United Nations’ top humanitarian official said on Saturday that the situation for some 50,000 civilians trapped in Sri Lanka's war zone is now “very dire,” and a pause in the fighting between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels is desperately needed to get them out of danger. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who was on his way to the troubled island nation for a three-day emergency mission, said in Bangkok that he hopes to persuade the government to allow a humanitarian team into the conflict zone to assess the situation and the needs of trapped civilians. Reports of chaos in the northern war zone have increased in recent days as the Sri Lankan military pushes forward with its offensive to destroy the rebel group. The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for an independent ethnic Tamil state in the north and east. Holmes said the civilians are suffering from a “very high” casualty rate, and from lack of food, clean water and medical supplies. “The situation of those people is very dire and that's why we need to find a way to stop the fighting and get them out of there so we can look after them properly,” he told Associated Press Television News. The U.N. Security Council on Friday demanded cooperation from Sri Lanka's government in gaining access to the civilians. Sri Lanka has barred aid groups and independent journalists from the war zone since last year, arguing that it was too dangerous for them to work.
In yet another appeal on Saturday, the European Union strongly condemned the killings of civilians and called on all parties to take all necessary action to avoid further civilian casualties. The Tamil Tigers have vowed no surrender and the government has rejected calls for any more breaks in the fighting, arguing the Tigers have repeatedly manipulated civilian crises in the past to build pressure for truces they have then used to re-arm.