COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Three Sri Lankan doctors who treated hundreds of badly wounded civilians in understaffed, makeshift hospitals in the country’s war zone were detained on accusations they gave false information about the casualties to the media, a health official said Monday.
With journalists and nearly all aid workers barred from the war zone, Thurairaja Varatharajah, Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi and V. Shanmugarajah became some of the few sources of information.
The doctors fled the conflict last week as the government’s fight against the Tamil Tiger rebels neared its conclusion.
A health ministry official said the doctors were detained by the military when they fled and were later turned over to police.
As the fighting in the north escalated, the doctors told harrowing stories of the fighting and the conditions they were forced to work under. They repeatedly relocated their makeshift hospital as government forces swept over the area. They described how the vast number of wounded civilians overwhelmed their facility, as they ran low on medicine, supplies and staff. Eventually, they could only throw gauze and bandages at the wounded.
As the doctors told the world of the dire conditions for civilians, government officials denied the men existed. They later acknowledged that Varatharajah and Sathyamurthi were working for the government in the war zone, but said they were under rebel pressure to lie about the fighting.
The government also denied it was shelling the war zone and dismissed reports of large civilian casualties.
