COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A top U.N. official met with Sri Lankan leaders Friday to discuss efforts to free tens of thousands of people trapped by the raging civil war amid reports that 4,500 civilians have been killed in fighting over the past three months.
The government has cornered the Tamil Tiger rebels in a sliver of land along the northeastern coast and vowed to crush the group after more than a quarter-century of fighting on the Indian Ocean island nation.
But concerns have grown about the escalating toll the war is taking on the estimated 100,000 ethnic Tamil civilians crowded into what remains of rebel-controlled territory.
A government health official in the war zone said Friday that at least five children were dying every day from diarrhea and malnutrition, and many mothers are too emaciated to nurse their babies. The fighting has made the delivery of food aid nearly impossible, and food stocks have dwindled as the war zone was virtually cut off from the rest of the country.
Backed into a corner and on the verge of defeat, the rebels Friday promised they would continue their fight by “political means” should the international community broker a cease-fire.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon sent his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, to Sri Lanka to discuss the fate of the civilians and efforts to free them. Nambiar met with President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the secretary of defense and other officials, and the U.N. reported some movement on the issue.
“We do feel that in his discussions with government officials there’s been a little bit of movement forward in terms of trying to have more of an effort to obtain the release of the civilians who are currently trapped in the conflict zone,” U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said at U.N. headquarters in New York. “But those efforts will need to continue.”
