COLOMBO, 22 March 2007 — Tiger rebels yesterday fought pitched battles with troops in Sri Lanka while war planes bombed guerrilla positions, the military said, placing the death toll from both sides at 18.
Troops and the Tamil Tigers were locked in fierce mortar and artillery duels for five hours in the east of the island, where some 150,000 civilians had been displaced by recent fighting, the Defense Ministry said.
“The fighting went on for five hours and the air force was called in to bomb identified concentrations of the Tigers,” ministry spokesman Prasad Samarasinghe said. “We were also firing rockets at fleeing Tigers.” The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) launched a pre-dawn assault against four key military camps in the coastal Batticaloa district and several civilians were caught in the crossfire.
Local military officials said about 40 civilians were wounded in rebel mortar bomb attacks that also hit a relief center.
The military said four soldiers were killed and 30 wounded while troops recovered the bodies of eight men rebels and one woman. Another five Tigers were killed in a similar confrontation on the Jaffna Peninsula, the military said.
The air force deployed Israeli-built Kfir jets to bomb two positions in the Batticaloa district, air force spokesman Ajantha Silva said.
“We have bombed two identified targets where there were concentrations of Tigers who had been involved in the attacks against the army earlier in the day,” Silva said.
There was no immediate word from the Tigers about the latest fighting, but the LTTE said in a statement that eight civilians disappeared in the district of Batticaloa on Tuesday.
Official figures show 148,419 people were listed as internally displaced in the Batticaloa district since the military captured a key base of the Tigers in January.
Since then, the military has also stepped up attacks against Tamil Tiger boats and claimed sinking three large supply ships that were allegedly trying to smuggle weapons into the island since Feb. 28.
The UN food relief agency in a statement said some 95,000 people had fled fierce fighting in the Batticaloa district in the past week alone, adding to the problems of providing shelter to refugees.
A consortium of charities, including UN agencies, last week appealed for more money to look after thousands of refugees displaced by fighting in the restive eastern province.
Relief workers also raised concerns for the safety of civilians in Batticaloa, but the government yesterday said it was trying to re-settle those who wished to go back to their homes.
“So far, we have got only four percent of our funding requirement,” Orla Clinton, a UN spokeswomen here said. “And with the latest influx of refugees we need more money now — much more than $66 million we anticipated a few months back.”
More than 4,000 people have been killed in a new wave of fighting since December 2005 between government troops and rebels fighting for an independent homeland for the Tamil minority.
