Fleeing civilians want Army to rescue them - Sunday Telegraph

Walter Jayawardhana

The mass circulated Sunday Telegraph of the United Kingdom said the people who escaped from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) controlled area had told them that the remaining people do not like the Tigers’ dictatorial mini-state any more and they want the Sri Lankan Army to rescue them.

Quoting a man who escaped to Kilinochchi, Sunday Telegraph’s Nick Meo said: What the man had to say about the Tigers would have been unthinkable for a subject of their dictatorial mini-state a few weeks ago. The people do not like the Tigers any more, he said angrily. ‘They are trapped by them and they are scared.

They want the Sri Lankan Army to rescue them.’ Reporting from Kilinochchi, the Sunday Telegraph staffer said people are being used as human shields by the Tigers who have promised to fight to the death.

The exhausted businessman was safe in a Sri Lankan army base after weeks trapped with other civilians in a seven square mile strip of land on Sri Lanka North East coast, short of food and fresh water and incessantly pounded by shells, the report said.

The LTTE who for last 26 years have claimed to be fighting to protect Sri Lankan Tamils have forbidden the refugees to leave on pain of death.

But the conflict grinds slowly towards its end with the Tigers apparently facing final defeat, conditions within their enclave have become so grim that in the past week alone that an estimated 5,000 men, women and terrified children have risked their lives to flee. Many have been shot by Tiger gunmen and some of those caught have been executed, the report said.

Meo wrote: “The elderly man wearing a grimy T Shirt and sarong and clutching a single bag that contained all that remained of his possessions, had managed to get out that morning.