COLOMBO: A mortar shell slammed into a crowd of wounded civilians waiting for treatment at the only medical facility left in Sri Lanka’s war zone yesterday, killing 49 people in the third day of intense shelling in the area, health officials said.
The Tamil Tiger rebels blamed the government for the attack — the second deadly strike on the hospital this month — and called on the international community to push for an immediate cease-fire.
Sri Lankan officials denied responsibility, saying they had ceased using artillery and mortars weeks ago. But the UN humanitarian chief said there was evidence the government was still using heavy weapons, despite the estimated 50,000 civilians stuck in the tiny coastal strip under rebel control. The Red Cross said a ferry filled with aid had to turn back because of fighting.
Pressing ahead with the offensive, government forces broke through a sand fortification, killed dozens of insurgents and advanced to the edge of the “safe zone” where the government had told the civilians in the war zone to gather, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Yesterday’s attack on the makeshift hospital’s admissions ward — little more than a tin roof and blue tarp walls — came after a weekend of artillery barrages that killed as many as 1,000 civilians, according to hospital officials.
While some of the victims of those earlier attacks waited to be treated, a single mortar shell hit the admissions ward at about 7:30 a.m., said Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah, the top government health official in the war zone.
