Hundreds Of Sri Lankan Civilians Dead As Tamil Tigers Clash With Army

A father's tale of horror from Sri Lanka's line of fireCaught in the crossfire between troops and rebels, Sri Lankan families are being used as human shields

Gethin Chamberlain in Colombo guardian.co.uk, Saturday 18 April 2009 16.20 BST


The shell exploded without warning. Kandiah Rasamahendran felt a searing pain in his left leg and looked down, to see blood gushing from the wound.

His young sons were screaming, his wife struck dumb with shock. Frantically, he scooped sand from the floor of their makeshift bunker and poured it into the gaping hole, trying to staunch the bleeding.

Five hundred metres from the earth embankment where the last surviving Tamil Tigers were battling Sri Lankan troops, the family were desperately exposed.

It was Wednesday afternoon. All day, bullets had been flying through the flimsy tents that are home to the tens of thousands of people crammed into the no-fire zone. At 12.30pm an 18-year-old girl a couple of hundred metres away was struck in the chest. She died on the spot.

As the Tigers exchanged fire with the Sri Lankan soldiers, 52-year-old Rasamahendran ducked below the sandbags they had piled around their tent, hoping they would be spared.

"We kept hearing the sound of bullets hitting the trees and the tents," he said, speaking by phone yesterday morning through an interpreter.

Suddenly, at 5pm, there was an explosion and shards of metal scythed through the air.

"We were just talking and then the first shell hit the sandbags," he said "Two or three shells fell. I saw my left leg was bleeding. There was a lot of blood. I put sand into it to try to stop it.

"I was frightened and was holding the wound with both my hands. My wife was so shocked that she could not speak, but my two youngest sons were crying.

"After a few minutes some medics came and they wrapped clothes around the wound and put me on a motorbike and rode me to the hospital."

From outside came the sound of a helicopter and then a burst of shots. "I heard it race over about 100 metres high and then I heard firing. After a little while, 25 people came in with injuries. Some of them were burned from where the tents had caught fire."

Inside the shrinking no-fire zone, set up by the Sri Lankan government for civilians to shelter from the fighting, tens of thousands of people are crammed into an area of about 17 sq km. Packed so tightly, every stray shell or bullet has the potential to cause dozens of casualties. The Sri Lankan government says it is determined to spare the innocent, but with the rebel fighters mingling with civilians in such a tight space, casualties are inevitable. Hundreds have been killed or seriously injured.

The only spot Rasamahendran could find to shelter with his wife and four children lies just 500 metres from an earth embankment dug by the rebels.

"Throughout the day and night we hear the sound of the shells and the bullets. We can see the smoke rising in the air. But other areas are being attacked too. Nowhere here is safe," he said.

The UN has urged both sides to call a halt to the fighting to allow the civilians it says are being used by the rebels as human shields to escape. Neither side appears willing to comply.

"There is no route through," Rasamahendran said. "I am afraid that we will be killed by the firing. Both sides are fighting and I don't want to lose my children.

"I'm not sure how many more days we can live like this. I was a farmer but I have lost everything. Without a job I have no money for food and there is little for us to eat. I have not seen a vegetable for months. We eat rice and dal but now rice is 300 rupees a bag and how can I afford that?"

"There is nowhere that is safe in this area. Shells fall arbitrarily during the day and at night whenever a vehicle crosses the road the army are firing at it."

He is currently in Putumattalan hospital, unable to walk without support. The doctor treating him said he had suffered lacerations to his left leg and had come to the phone in a wheelchair.

The interpreter asked him where the shells came from. Rasamahendran just smiled, he said. "Both sides are fighting but here it seems all the shells come from the army," he said.

Guardian