COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Tens of thousands of civilians trapped in Sri Lanka's northern war zone are facing starvation, the Tamil Tiger rebels warned Saturday as the UN sent its top humanitarian official to assess the crisis.
Reports of chaos in the northern war zone have increased in recent days as the Sri Lankan military pushed forward with its offensive to destroy the rebel group and end the Indian Ocean island nation's bloody quarter-century civil war.
More than 100,000 civilians have fled the tiny coastal strip still under rebel control since Monday, flooding hospitals in the north and overwhelming government-run displacement camps, according to aid workers. The UN says another 50,000 civilians remain trapped in the war zone.
The Tamil Tigers, who say the number of trapped civilians is three times that estimate, said in a statement Saturday that food stocks in the region had dwindled, making starvation "imminent."
UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes described the situation as "very dire" and appealed for a pause in the fighting to get the civilians out of danger. He said they were suffering from a "very high" casualty rate.
Speaking in Thailand en route for a three-day emergency mission, Holmes said he hopes to persuade the Sri Lankan government to allow a humanitarian team into the conflict zone.
Dr. Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi, a top government health official in the war zone, told The Associated Press on Friday that there was a severe shortage of food and medicine in the area and people were dying of starvation.
The rebels called on the United Nations and the international community to ensure that food supplies are swiftly sent to the area.
"We fear that further delay can result in a crisis similar to that faced in Darfur or even deadlier," the group said in a statement published on the rebel-allied TamilNet Web site.
The government has barred aid groups and independent journalists from the war zone since last year, arguing that it was too dangerous for them to work.
The UN says nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed in the fighting over the past three months.
The rebels, listed as a terror group by many Western nations, have been fighting since 1983 for an ethnic Tamil state in the north and east after decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority. After more than three years of intense fighting, the government stands on the verge of crushing the group.
Riding a wave of popularity from its war success, Sri Lanka's ruling party appeared the favourite to win an election Saturday in Western province. The ruling alliance already controls five of the country's eight provinces with a resounding majority.
International pressure on Sri Lanka has grown in recent days, with neighbouring India sending two top officials Friday to demand a pause in the fighting to allow civilians to escape.
The White House said it was "deeply concerned" about the civilians and warned that abuses of humanitarian law would make post-conflict reconciliation difficult.
The United Nations Security Council also demanded Sri Lanka's cooperation with efforts to visit the war zone and called for access for the International Committee of the Red Cross as well.
The Group of Eight industrialized nations called Saturday for a halt to the fighting to save the civilians and accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields.
Sri Lankan officials have brushed off calls for a ceasefire.
The international pressure came as thousands continued to flee the war zone. The military said Saturday that a further 2,600 civilians escaped the area by land and boat Friday, bringing the number who have fled since Monday to nearly 110,000.
Doctors Without Borders surgeon Paul McMaster said the hospital he was working at in the northern town of Vavuniya was overwhelmed by injured civilians who escaped the fighting in recent days.
"We have done 71 major operations over the past 24 hours," he said in a statement released Friday by the aid group. "It has been bedlam in the hospital."
One ward with 45 beds was packed with 320 patients and many patients were dying because of a severe nursing shortage, he said.
"There are simply too many people to treat them all. We are not able to save some people because we need to provide more aftercare," he said.
One of his patients, a girl age 7 or 8 with a severe leg injury, is sharing a bed with an older sister who has wounds on her arms and legs, he said. Another sister has burns on her face, their mother was killed in the fighting and their father is in intensive care with a 50 per cent chance of survival, he said.
