COLOMBO, 13 March 2007 — International relief agencies expressed alarm yesterday at the rising number of civilians forced to flee fighting between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels, and said populated areas were endangered by continued shelling.

Government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels clashed in the north, meanwhile, leaving three rebels dead, and a separate bomb attack killed a paramilitary village guard, the Defense Ministry said yesterday. The ongoing violence is forcing thousands of residents, mostly Tamils, in eastern Sri Lanka’s Batticaloa district to flee their homes.

A group of UN and private relief agencies, the Inter Agency Standing Committee, said it was “alarmed at the increasing number of people who are being displaced... as a result of the current escalation in hostilities.”

“As fighting continues, we are also worried for the safety and protection of all civilians, as reports indicate that shelling is occurring from and to highly populated areas,” they said in a statement.

More than 105,000 people have fled from Batticaloa since December 2005 to seek shelter in government-controlled areas, the International Committee of the Red Cross said over the weekend.

On Sunday, lawmaker Senadhiraja Jeyanandamoorthy from the Tamil National Alliance, widely seen as a rebel proxy party, said military artillery fire against rebel positions had driven tens of thousands of people from their homes in recent weeks.

Military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe denied that civilian areas were being targeted.

Violence, meanwhile, continued. A group of rebels was detected Sunday near Muhamalai, a border post that divides government and rebel-held areas on the northern Jaffna Peninsula, said Lt. Col. Upali Rajapakse, a senior officer at the Defense Ministry’s information center.

“A group of Tigers wanted to sneak into our area with the intention to carry out sabotage and killing. We got them before they could come in,” he said.

Rajapakse said a powerful explosive device was recovered from the area after the rebels fled with their dead fighters.

Yesterday, rebels detonated a roadside bomb near the northern town of Vavuniya, killing a paramilitary “home guard” employed by the government to provide village security, Samarasinghe said.