The three have spent more than 150 days in custody, yet no charges have been filed and no evidence of any crime has been produced. If the authorities have no credible basis to charge Tissainayagam and the two others, they should be immediately released. ” – Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

On March 7, 2008, the police Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) arrested J.S. Tissainayagam, a columnist with the Sunday Times newspaper and editor of the Outreach website. The previous day the TID had arrested N. Jasiharan, the owner of E-Kwality press, and his wife V. Valamathy. Tissainayagam and Jasiharan are co-directors of the company Outreach Multimedia; Valamathy has no official role with the company. In a court appearance on June 23, Jasiharan stated that TID officers had assaulted him.

“The three have spent more than 150 days in custody, yet no charges have been filed and no evidence of any crime has been produced,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “If the authorities have no credible basis to charge Tissainayagam and the two others, they should be immediately released.”

The government has yet to provide reasons why the three were detained. Tissainayagam has been critical of the government on many issues. At the time of his arrest, government sources suggested that he may have connections to the armed separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but have produced no evidence of this. Reports have suggested that Jasiharan and Valarmathy were detained due to their connections to Tissainayagam. Journalists and others who are vocal critics of the government are often accused of having links with the LTTE and branded as traitors and terrorists.

Human Rights Watch expressed deep concern at the government’s disregard for Sri Lankan and international law in these cases. Detention orders for the three were not issued at the time of arrest as required by the emergency regulations. On March 27, the attorney general’s department stated before the Supreme Court that a detention order had been issued for Tissainayagam, but said that the order was not in their possession to be given to the courts or the detainee. Later the same day, a detention order was issued to Tissainayagam, backdated to March 7.

None of the three detainees has had adequate access to counsel. Tissainayagam has been allowed visits by his lawyers only twice. On both occasions, police officers were present during the discussions, violating his right to communicate and consult with a lawyer in full confidentiality. The three have filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court challenging the legality of their continued detention.

On July 11, the attorney general’s department informed the Supreme Court that investigations into Tissainayagam’s case had been completed. But the attorney general’s department obtained an extension until August 20 to report back to the court on the status of the investigations. Human Rights Watch said that the slow pace of the investigation reflected broader concerns about the department’s independence and impartiality that raised troubling due process issues.

“The attorney general should release the three, instead of continuing to violate their rights under domestic and international law,” said Adams. “By detaining a prominent government critic without charge, he is seriously risking the credibility of his office.”

Human Rights Watch reiterated its concerns about sweeping emergency regulations introduced in August 2006 after the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgama. The present regulations give the security forces expansive powers of search, arrest, detention, and seizure of property, including the authority to make warrantless arrests and to hold individuals in unacknowledged detention for up to 12 months. Most of those detained under the emergency regulations are young Tamil men deemed by the security forces to have LTTE ties. Increasingly, however, the regulations are being used against Muslims and Sinhalese who challenge or criticize the state.

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(HRW) The Sri Lankan government is responsible for widespread abductions and “disappearances” that are a national crisis, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch urged the government to reveal the whereabouts of the “disappeared,” immediately end the practice, and hold the perpetrators accountable.
Since major fighting between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) resumed in 2006, Sri Lankan security forces and pro-government armed groups have “disappeared” or abducted hundreds of individuals, many of whom are feared dead.

The 241-page report, “Recurring Nightmare: State Responsibility for ‘Disappearances’ and Abductions in Sri Lanka,” documents 99 of the several hundred cases reported, and examines the Sri Lankan government’s response, which to date has been grossly inadequate. In 2006 and 2007, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances recorded more new “disappearance” cases from Sri Lanka than from any other country in the world.

“President Mahinda Rajapaksa, once a rights advocate, has now led his government to become one of the world’s worst perpetrators of enforced disappearances,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The end of the ceasefire means this crisis will continue until the government starts taking serious measures.”

Under international law, a state commits an enforced disappearance when it takes a person into custody and denies holding them or disclosing their whereabouts. “Disappeared” persons are commonly subjected to torture or extrajudicial execution, and cause family members continued suffering. An enforced disappearance is a continuing rights violation – it is ongoing until the fate or whereabouts of the person becomes known.

The vast majority of cases documented by Human Rights Watch indicate the involvement of government security forces – army, navy, or police. In some cases, relatives of the “disappeared” identified specific military units that had detained their relatives and army camps where they had been taken. In other cases, they described uniformed policemen, especially members of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), taking their relatives into custody before they “disappeared.”

Vairamuththu Varatharasan, a 40-year-old truck driver and father of five, was abducted from his home in Colombo on January 7, 2007, and has not been seen since. His wife told Human Rights Watch:

“A group of about 20 men – some in police uniforms, some in civilian clothes surrounded the house. One policeman came inside and asked for our identity card. I went into one of the rooms to get the identity card. By the time I came out of the room, my husband was not there; neither was the policeman. I ran out and spotted a van parked in a dark place on the road. I ran to the road, but by the time I got there, the van started and left.”

Most of the victims are ethnic Tamils, although Muslims and Sinhalese have also been targeted. In many cases, the security forces “disappeared” individuals because of their alleged affiliation with the LTTE. Clergy, educators, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists also were targeted – not only to remove them from the civil sphere, but also to warn others to avoid such activities.

Pro-government Tamil armed groups are also implicated in the abductions and “disappearances” – specifically the Karuna group and the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) – acting either independently or in conjunction with the security forces.

The number of abductions perpetrated by the LTTE is comparatively low since targeted killings, rather than abductions, appear to be the LTTE’s primary tactic. The LTTE has also been responsible for numerous other egregious abuses, including bombings against civilians, political assassinations, forced child recruitment, and the systematic repression of basic civil and political rights in areas under their control.

In the face of the crisis, the government of Sri Lanka has demonstrated an utter lack of resolve to investigate and prosecute those responsible. Not a single member of the security forces has been brought to justice for involvement in “disappearances” or abductions. Human Rights Watch said that Sri Lanka’s emergency laws, which grant the security forces sweeping powers to arbitrarily arrest and detain people without being held to account, have facilitated enforced disappearances.

“So long as soldiers and police can commit ‘disappearances’ with impunity, this horrific crime will continue,” said Pearson.

The Rajapaksa government has set up an array of special bodies tasked with monitoring and investigating “disappearances” and other human rights violations. None have yielded concrete results.

Human Rights Watch said this failure is unsurprising given that, at the highest levels, the Sri Lankan government continues to downplay the problem, denying the scale of the crisis and that its own security forces are involved.

“The government’s mechanisms to address ‘disappearances’ will remain impotent so long as the president and top officials fail to send a clear signal to the security forces that these abuses will not be tolerated,” said Pearson.

Sri Lanka’s key international partners and the UN bodies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have raised serious concerns about the alarming number of “disappearances” and prevailing impunity. They have expressed growing support for the establishment of a UN human rights monitoring mission to investigate and report on abuses by government forces and the LTTE throughout the country.

Human Rights Watch deplored the Sri Lankan government’s opposition to an international monitoring mission, given that such initiatives have proven effective elsewhere in dealing with “disappearances.” With sufficient mandate and resources, the monitoring mission could achieve what the government and various national mechanisms have failed to do: establish the location of detainees through unimpeded visits to the detention facilities; request information regarding specific cases from all sides to the conflict; assist national law enforcement agencies and human rights mechanisms in investigating the cases and communicating with the families; and maintain credible records of reported cases.

“The Sri Lankan government’s rejection of a UN monitoring mission reflects badly on its commitment to human rights,” said Pearson. “While the government dawdles, many Sri Lankans will continue to pay the price.”

Human Rights Watch called on the government of Sri Lanka to:

• Take immediate measures to end the practice of enforced disappearances, vigorously investigate all cases reported, and bring the perpetrators to account; and
• Cooperate with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish and deploy an international monitoring team to report on violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict.

Human Rights Watch also called on Sri Lanka’s international partners, in particular India and Japan, to make further military and other non-humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka contingent on government efforts to halt the practice of “disappearances,” and to end impunity, including its acceptance of an international monitoring mission.

Testimonies from the report

“They started beating Thiyagarajah. They took his T-shirt off and stuffed it into his mouth. The neighbors came out to help, but they pushed them away. His wife was crying and shouting, and they hit her with a gun butt. She was nine months pregnant. They were accusing Thiyagarajah of having bombs in the house, and forced him to dig the ground around the house. They searched the house, turning everything upside down, but didn’t find anything. They beat him so badly that he couldn’t walk – they had to carry him away. They took him away on a motorcycle.”
– A relative of 25-year-old Thiyagarajah Saran, “disappeared” on the night of February 20, 2007, from East Puttur, Jaffna

“The villagers told me they saw Pathinather and Anton being interrogated by the military. The military held them at gunpoint. Then the military put them into the Powell [vehicle], and also loaded their bicycles into their vehicle. The villagers could not see much because the army ordered them to disperse, and now they are too afraid to talk to anybody about what they saw.”
– A relative of 21-year-old Anton Prabananth, “disappeared” on February 17, 2007 together with 24-year-old Pathinather Prasanna, from Jaffna

“When we got to the [Kodikamam] army camp, I saw my nephew’s bicycle parked there. It was parked near the camp, in the military-controlled area. When we asked the soldiers, they denied arresting them, and when I said we had seen the bike, they got very angry, and started yelling, ‘Who told you to go and look there?! We’ll shoot you if you ever approach this place again!’ We asked the GS [local civilian official] and the police to get the bike back, but they couldn’t. Eventually, the commander in the camp returned the bike to us. He said that the people who had arrested our men were no longer there, so we should just take the bike and go.”
– A relative of 26-year-old Thavaruban Kanapathipillai, “disappeared” on August 16, 2006, together with 30-year-old Shangar Santhivarseharam from Kachai, Jaffna

“Two people came to our door, in uniforms. They were armed. Another man was dressed in an army T-shirt and jeans. I asked where they were taking my husband. The person in civilian clothes showed me a pistol. I asked where they were taking him again and he showed the pistol again, and then they took him out. I ran after them, and they had two vans, white and blue.”
– Wife of 21-year-old Ramakrishnan Rajkumar, “disappeared” on August 23, 2006, from Colombo

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(HRW) UN member states enforced the standards they established for the new Human Rights Council by not re-electing Sri Lanka to the body today. Domestic and international human rights advocates who had opposed Sri Lanka’s re-election to the council said the vote was a victory for human rights standards and for victims of abuse in Sri Lanka.
Fifteen seats on the 47-member council were filled in the election during the UN General Assembly, in which six candidates competed for the four open seats reserved for Asian countries. The UN assembly elected Japan with 155 votes, South Korea with 139, Pakistan with 114, and Bahrain with 142 votes. Sri Lanka failed to win election with 101 votes, as did the new state of Timor Leste, which garnered 92 votes.

In reconstituting the UN’s leading human rights body in 2006, UN states required council members to “uphold the highest standards” of human rights and “fully cooperate” with the council. Sri Lanka was one of the initial members elected to the rights council in 2006, and strongly campaigned for re-election this year in New York, Geneva, and capitals around the world.

“We applaud UN members for rejecting an abusive state which has used its position on the Human Rights Council not to promote human rights, but to protect itself and other violator states from scrutiny,” said Steve Crawshaw, UN Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch and spokesman for the NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council. “The defeat of Sri Lanka this year, and of Belarus last year, will help discourage other human rights violators from seeking or winning election to the council.”

In opposing re-election, a coalition of Sri Lankan nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) said that their government has “presided over a grave deterioration of human rights protection” since winning membership, and “has used its membership in the Human Rights Council to protect itself from scrutiny.” A coalition of NGOs from all regions of the world charged Sri Lanka with widespread disappearances, extrajudicial killings, torture, and a failure to cooperate with UN human rights experts. Three Nobel Peace Prize winners – Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel of Argentina, and former President Jimmy Carter of the United States – also called on UN Members to oppose Sri Lanka’s re-election bid.

A coalition of NGOs also successfully opposed the candidacy of Belarus for the Human Rights Council in 2007, when Belarus was defeated by Bosnia and Herzegovina on a second ballot in the General Assembly.

“The rejection of Sri Lanka after a global campaign lends vital support to the victims of abuse, and sends a strong message to the government of Sri Lanka,” said Michael Anthony, program coordinator of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong. “We hope this result will open a new international dialogue with Sri Lanka that encourages the government to put an end to rampant violations by its security forces, and accept the assistance of human rights monitors from the United Nations. The separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam also commit grave human rights abuses, but this does not justify government abuses, and the people of Sri Lanka would benefit greatly from UN monitoring of both sides to the conflict.”

There were competitive elections for the open seats allocated to two of the other five UN regional groups. To represent Western European and Others Group, UN members elected the United Kingdom and France, while Spain failed to win election. From Eastern Europe, Slovakia and Ukraine were elected, while Serbia was unsuccessful. A “closed slate” nominated by the African Group – Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, and Zambia – all won the “absolute majority” required for election to the four open African seats, as did the three countries – Argentina, Brazil, and Chile – which ran uncontested for the three open seats allocated to Latin America and the Caribbean.

“We wish that there had been competitive elections in all five regions, as contemplated when the council was established,” said Franck Kamunga of the African Democracy Forum in Nairobi. “However, all of the countries elected this year have the potential to make a real contribution to promoting human rights. The important thing now is for the new council members to put aside political considerations and alliances and use their positions conscientiously to protect the victims of human rights abuse.”

While taking no position on whether Pakistan and Bahrain should have been elected to the council, the NGO Coalition for an Effective Human Rights Council specifically called on both governments to implement domestic human rights reforms and engage more constructively with other governments on the council.

“Pakistan and Bahrain must now live up to the standards set for Human Rights Council membership,” said Juliette de Rivero, Geneva director at Human Rights Watch. “They must work to strengthen the council’s capacity to protect the victims of human rights worldwide, rather than allowing abusive governments to be shielded from scrutiny.”

To read more about the Sri Lanka campaign, please visit:

http://www.hrw.org/effectiveHRC/SriLanka

In the new 100-page report, “Complicit in Crime: State Collusion in Abductions and Child Recruitment by the Karuna Group,” Human Rights Watch documents a pattern of abductions and forced recruitment by the Karuna group over the past year. With case studies, maps and photographs, it shows how Karuna cadres operate with impunity in government-controlled areas, abducting boys and young men, training them in camps, and deploying them for combat.

“The Karuna group is abducting children in broad daylight in areas firmly under government control,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government is fully aware of the abductions but allows them to happen because it’s eager for an ally against the Tamil Tigers.”

Based on research in Sri Lanka, including areas where the Karuna group operates, the report features testimony from two dozen family members of boys and young men abducted by the Karuna group. They described armed Karuna members forcibly taking their brothers, nephews and sons from their homes, workplaces, temples, playgrounds, public roads, and even a wedding.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has documented more than 200 cases of child recruitment by the Karuna group in Sri Lanka’s eastern districts, where the group is active. But the real number is certainly much higher due to underreporting.

Children are not the only targets. Human Rights Watch found that the Karuna group has abducted and forcibly recruited hundreds of young men between ages 18 and 30. Human Rights Watch knows of only two cases in which the Karuna group abducted girls. It generally targets poor families, and often those who have already had a child recruited by the Tamil Tigers.

At least since June 2006, and probably before, the Sri Lankan government has known about the Karuna abductions. The districts of the east where they have taken place are firmly under government control, with myriad military and police checkpoints and security force camps.

“After years of condemning child recruitment by the Tamil Tigers, the government is now complicit in the same crimes,” said Jo Becker, child rights advocate at Human Rights Watch, who has written extensively about the Tamil Tigers. “The government’s collusion on child abductions by the Karuna group highlights its hypocrisy.”

In one incident in June 2006, the Karuna group abducted 13 boys and young men, holding some of them for a while in a shop across the street from an army post. Some of the parents pleaded with the soldiers to intervene. Two soldiers spoke with the Karuna group members, parents told Human Rights Watch, but the soldiers did not stop the abduction.

On the same day in another village, soldiers from the Sri Lankan army gathered seven boys and young men in a field, checked their IDs, and took their photographs. Members of the Karuna group arrived that night and abducted four of the seven, although it remains unclear in this instance whether the army forces were deliberately acting in collusion with the Karuna group.

After abducting boys and young men, the Karuna group often holds them temporarily in the nearest office of its political party, the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), which are routinely guarded by the Sri Lankan military or police. Parents told Human Rights Watch that they either saw their abducted sons in these offices or TMVP officials confirmed to families that they had been there.

After a few days, the Karuna group usually transfers abductees to one of its camps in the jungle about 10 kilometers northwest of Welikanda town in the Polonnaruwa district, about 50 kilometers northwest of Batticaloa town. Welikanda is where the Sri Lankan Army’s 23rd division has its base. The area is firmly under government control, as is the main A11 road from the eastern districts to the Welikanda area. Travel through the area necessitates passing through numerous army and police checkpoints, and transporting abducted youth to the camps would have been impossible without the complicity of government security forces. The Karuna camp at Mutugalla village is near a Sri Lankan army post.

“Not only do government forces fail to stop the abductions, but they allow the Karuna group to transport kidnapped children through checkpoints on the way to their camps,” Becker said.

Human Rights Watch said that the Sri Lankan police are also complicit in their unwillingness to seriously investigate complaints filed by the parents of abducted boys and young men. In some cases, the police reportedly refused to register parents’ complaints. In other cases, the police registered the complaint but failed to undertake what the family considered a proper investigation. In no known case did the police secure the child’s release.

In a November interview with Human Rights Watch, Karuna denied allegations that his forces were abducting or recruiting children. He said his forces had no members under age 20, and that they would discipline any commander who tried to recruit a person under that age. He subsequently made commitments to the UN to issue policy statements banning child recruitment, to release any child found among the Karuna group’s ranks, and to provide UNICEF with access to his camps.

On January 2, 2007, the TMVP, Karuna’s political party, provided UNICEF with regulations for its military wing, stating 18 as the minimum age for recruitment, and specifying penalties for members who conscript children.

There is no sign yet that these commitments are being honored. Local human rights activists and international agencies report that the Karuna group continued to abduct boys and young men in November and December 2006.

In November, after UN envoy Allan Rock raised allegations of government complicity in Karuna abductions, the Sri Lankan government promised an investigation. Instead, government and military officials launched attacks against Rock’s credibility.

“The government must stop making excuses and launch a serious and impartial investigation of government complicity in Karuna crimes,” Adams said. “If the government won’t investigate, then it must allow an independent, international inquiry.”

The LTTE has long abducted children into its forces, and used them as infantry soldiers, intelligence officers, medics, and even suicide bombers. Human Rights Watch documented the practice in a 2004 report, “Living in Fear: Child Soldiers and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.”

The new report includes updated information on Tamil Tiger child abductions and urges the UN to impose targeted sanctions on the group because of its status as a repeat offender. The UN should insist that the Karuna group immediately adopt and implement an action plan to end all recruitment and use of child soldiers, and consider targeted sanctions if it fails to do so, Human Rights Watch said.

On February 9, a UN Security Council working group on children and armed conflict is scheduled to consider reported violations against children by all parties to Sri Lanka’s armed conflict. The working group will make recommendations for Security Council action.

In the meantime, Human Rights Watch called on the Tamil Tigers, the Karuna group, and the Sri Lankan government to stop the recruitment of children. The Karuna group and the Tamil Tigers should immediately release all children among their ranks.

“The British government had an alleged war criminal in custody for six months and couldn’t manage to file charges,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This was a rare opportunity to hold a leader of the Tamil Tigers accountable for horrific human rights abuses, and the British government blew it.”

Immigration authorities in the UK arrested Karuna on November 2, 2007. After a criminal conviction, he served half of a nine-month term for possessing illegal documents. Despite assistance from nongovernmental organizations and others, the government on May 9, 2008 announced that the Crown Prosecution Service found there was insufficient evidence to convict Karuna for any criminal offenses in the UK.

The British government has frequently raised concerns about Sri Lanka’s deteriorating human rights situation with Colombo and has long criticized the LTTE for serious human rights abuses. British law permits the prosecution of individuals for serious violations of international law, including torture and war crimes, committed abroad. For example, in 2005, UK courts convicted a former Afghan warlord, Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, for acts of torture and hostage-taking in Afghanistan.

Tamil Tiger forces under Karuna’s command were directly involved in some of the worst crimes of Sri Lanka’s ongoing civil war. In June 1990, some 400 to 600 police officers who surrendered to the LTTE were bound, gagged, and beaten. The Tamil Tigers, including forces under Karuna’s control, then executed the Sinhalese and Muslims among them. In July 1990, Karuna’s forces stopped a convoy of Muslims traveling in Batticaloa district and executed about 75 people, including women and children. In August 1990, Karuna’s forces killed more than 200 civilians in two incidents in Batticaloa district.

In 2004, Human Rights Watch investigated the Tamil Tigers’ recruitment and use of children as soldiers. Karuna’s forces played a prominent role, routinely visiting Tamil homes to tell parents to provide a child for the “movement.” The LTTE harassed and threatened families that resisted, and children were abducted from their homes at night or while walking to school.

After Karuna broke away from the Tamil Tigers, his armed group operated with the complicity of the Sri Lankan security forces. The Karuna group, as it was known, engaged in abduction of children for use as soldiers in Sri Lanka’s eastern districts, taking boys from their homes, work places, temples, playgrounds, public roads, camps for the internally displaced, and even a wedding. These abuses are documented in the Human Rights Watch report, “Complicit in Crime: State Collusion in Abductions and Child Recruitment by the Karuna Group,” published in January 2007.

“Karuna’s escape from justice in the UK is a failure for international justice,” Adams said. “Now that Karuna is back in Colombo, the spotlight is on the Sri Lanka government to do the right thing or be deemed complicit in his crimes.”

The International Independent Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) says the presidential probe into abuses, including a massacre of 17 aid workers last year that Nordic truce monitors have blamed on security forces, lacks transparency and fails to meet international standards. There was no immediate comment from the president’s office.

The panel said the president’s office wrote to the commission last month clarifying that it was not necessary to probe the conduct of the Attorney General or his department regarding investigations relevant to the probe. [more…]

The 27th in the series of such surveys conducted since 2001 shows that 48.5 per cent of the Sinhala community feel that the war can be ended and peace restored in the country only by the government defeating the LTTE.

However, in the other three communities (Tamils – 62.3 per cent, Upcountry Tamils – 96.7 per cent, Muslims – 85.2 per cent) the option chosen was to stop the war and conduct peace negotiations. [more…]

A brief lull in the chaotic, makeshift emergency room at the Kantalai Base Hospital allowed her to sit down.

But the distant wailing of an arriving ambulance carrying soldiers wounded in fresh battles with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) signalled she would continue working the rest of the day.

“This country has been stressed out the past 20 years,” she said, referring to the Tiger insurgency that has claimed some 60,000 lives.

“I am stressed out,” she added. “I have not slept in a long time, I want to rest, but if more casualties come in today, no way.”

In the past few hours, she has tended to at least three soldiers wounded in fighting near disputed sluice gates at Maalivaru.

The government says it launched a “defensive operation” in the area to prevent Tiger guerrillas from occupying it.

At least 45 soldiers were wounded and three killed in the fresh fighting, adding to an official death toll of more than 440 in the past two weeks.

The small Kantalai Base Hospital is almost spartan and was used mainly to treat patients with minor injuries in the past.

But the outpatient reception area has been converted into a makeshift emergency ward, with hospital staff scrambling over one another in cramped conditions.

“We lack so many things here. We don’t have a fully functioning emergency treatment facility, no ICU (intensive care unit),” said hospital worker Minushi Kannangara as she hovered over a gunshot victim on the verge of unconsciousness and grimacing in pain.

“What we do is to try and stop them from dying here and give them a better chance before they are transferred to a bigger general hospital,” she said.

“What we can manage, we try to do here under extremely difficult circumstances,” Kannangara added.

“If war continues and there are more casualties, then we can’t file for a leave of absence,” she said, adding that medical personnel travelling in ambulances have also been targeted in the conflict.

“It’s safer if we stay here. And we can help,” she said.

Medical supervisor D.G.M. Costa said there are about 30 doctors working at the emergency unit at any one time.

He added that more volunteers were needed because the health situation in overflowing refugee camps was beginning to deteriorate.

“We are trying to build a field hospital outside of here to accommodate as many as we can. If this conflict continues, we certainly need more doctors,” he said, after barking orders to stressed nurses and aides.

At the moment, he said, there were enough medicines and supplies, but other doctors said the local blood bank could run dry if the stream of casualties continued over the next few weeks.

“At the rate this fighting is going, we expect much more to be brought here. We need all the help we can get,” the medical supervisor added.

At the emergency ward, Kannangara tries to calm a patient as she checks his vital signs. Blood oozed from a badly bandaged wound on his legs.

“You are going to be okay,” she said, her hands steady around a tourniquet.

But dark circles under her eyes and a quiver in her voice betrayed her exhaustion.

A pro-Tamil website is claiming at least 45 civilians have died in fighting around the coastal Trincomalee district.

The military says it has lost three soldiers during a day of air and artillery battles.

The fight is for control of a disputed irrigation channel which feeds water to about 15,000 inland rice farmers.

But the theatre of conflict has widened to include disputed control over several towns.

Up to 60,000 civilians have fled to makeshift refugee camps and concerns for their health and welfare is growing.

The United Nations meanwhile has strongly condemned the apparent execution-style murders of 17 civilian aid workers caught up in the conflict.

An Australian forensic expert is helping oversee the post mortem investigation.

Medics treated more than 30 new army casualties taken to the government-held town of Kantale in the island’s restive east, and were told to expect more. The local hospital struggled to cope, as injured shared beds and lay on trolleys.

The town is already struggling to cope with around 30,000 people displaced by days of fighting.

“There is a big offensive going on two fronts,” S. Puleedevan, head of the Tigers’ peace secretariat, told Reuters by phone. “Heavy fighting is going on, artillery, mortar fire and Kfir jets are bombarding.”

“The ceasefire really is in danger,” he added, saying hundreds of civilians were fleeing the area.

The military confirmed fighting but gave no details.

The fresh violence comes after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Tuesday lifted a blockade on water supplies to thousands of farmers in government territory in the east.

The government says it will not halt its operation until it controls a disputed sluice and a reservoir that feeds it. The Tigers say the land is theirs, and say ongoing army attacks amount to a declaration of war.

“It will continue until we can get our irrigation engineers to the area,” said Defense Spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella.

THOUSANDS DISPLACED

Civilians displaced and caught in the crossfire are paying a heavy price.

Doctors treating dozens of cases of skin infections and diarrhea in makeshift camps in Kantale turned to focus on new army casualties.

“Today we will have to cut back in the camps because in the camps there is no urgent need. They are not bleeding,” said Kantale Hospital administrator D.G.M. Costa as medics worked on throat and torso injuries.

“If things continue like this, then we will need more doctors.”

His team was treating more than 30 injured troops, many with blast injuries to their legs, who arrived in trucks and ambulances wearing bandages and crude wooden splints.

Aid workers say the human cost has already been high, although it will become much worse if the two-decade civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 people escalates to cover more of the north and east, where the Tigers want a separate homeland for minority Tamils.

Tens of thousands fled the battered eastern town of Mutur, heavily damaged by days of shelling and fighting. Aid agencies had planned to take two-busloads of residents back to the town on Thursday, but had to cancel the trip.

“We are just ordinary people,” 55-year-old fisherman M.A. Mohamed, one of many who has fled the conflict area and is now living under a bullock cart with four other families in Kantale. “We just want to get on with our lives.”

“I was shocked and saddened to hear of the killings in Sri Lanka” of the workers “who I understand were providing assistance to tsunami survivors in the eastern part of the country,” Clinton said.

The slain workers were staff in the Sri Lankan city of Muttur for the French aid group Action Against Hunger (Action Contre le Faim).

“I hope that this wanton act will not deter the critical efforts of aid workers in Sri Lanka, who have operated with courage and determination under difficult circumstances,” added Clinton in a statement released by the UN’s office of the special envoy for tsunami recovery, set up after the December 2004 disaster in the region.

“I offer my condolences to the victims and strongly urge the authorities to do everything possible to apprehend the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice,” said Clinton.

The Paris-based group, founded in 1979 by author Marek Halter and physicist Alfred Kastler, halted all activities in Sri Lanka and demanded an investigation into the murders.

The victims, all wearing ACF shirts, were clearly identified as aid workers, according to president Denis Metzger. ACF has been in Sri Lanka since 1996 and has 15 international employees and 224 national employees there. – Agencies

The massacre, which took place in the northeastern town of Mutur after days of fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger rebels, was one of the bloodiest attacks on an aid group in history.

“This will change how we operate, who we help and how we do it,” said one aid worker in Trincomalee, aid hub both for the conflict area and also for a swathe of the island’s east coast hit by the 2004 tsunami.

In the last few days, aid crews have found access to the area limited by angry mobs, mainly from the island’s ethnic Sinhalese majority, who say non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are biased in favour of minority Tamils and the rebels.

“Ever since this government got into power, it has whipped up anti-NGO feeling,” said Rohan Edrisinha, analyst at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in the capital, Colombo. “I think that has percolated down to the army, bureaucrats and officials.”

It is not only in Sri Lanka that aid workers are under fire. In Sudan’s Darfur region, aid agencies say July was the worst month on record with eight Sudanese staff killed and access restricted by violence and intimidation.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, aid staff say western agencies are often seen as simply an extension of the United States military and its allies.

In Zimbabwe, aid agencies continually have to lobby the government simply to remain—and so barely dare talk about their conditions, food shortages or abuse.

Some have ceased work all together.

POLITICISED AID

“When aid gets politicised, you have to negotiate simply to have the space in which to operate,” said one Trincomalee-based aid worker who also worked in Africa. “That makes things much more difficult. It can also make it more dangerous.”

With governments increasingly moving into the aid sphere, and relief programmes more involved in trying to engineer long-term social change that can involve contact with rebel groups rather than simply handing out food, it seems a growing trend.

In Sri Lanka, some attribute the rising anti-NGO sentiment to political pressure from hardline Buddhist and Marxist government allies.

With rebuilding after the 2004 tsunami slower than many hoped, aid workers and officials also blame each other.

“Here, problems seem to have been exacerbated by the fact that some foreign governments want to work through the NGOs rather than the government,” said Edrisinha.

The government says it will launch a proper investigation into the killing of the 17 staffers from the aid group Action Contre La Faim, but family members and increasing numbers of aid workers say it already appears likely that government troops were responsible.

All but one of the victims were Tamils, trapped in a majority Muslim town.

With a large number of victims of both the tsunami and the two-decade civil war being Tamils, aid workers say with hindsight that they probably did not do enough to win over hearts and minds of Sinhalese and Muslim residents—although with thousands of Muslims now displaced by the current crisis, they are trying hard.

“They see our white vehicles go through their village almost every day and they see us give them nothing,” said one aid worker.

17 humanitarian workers of the French NGO, Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger, ACF was shot to death in the aftermath of fighting between government forces and LTTE, in Muttur.

Media personal had obtain permission form the hospital authorities but DIG Trincomalee said that it is his authority not the hospital authorities to permit or not to permit media to cover the incident.