Women and children killed in Sri Lankan hospital shelling

A doctor has told how an 18-month-old child and a medical worker, were among the 20 killed when a hospital was shelled as people queued for milk at a mother and baby clinic. Yesterday morning’s attack, in the last area of Sri Lanka held by the Tamil Tigers, was one of several in a no-fire zone, which have killed a total of 60 people and injured 300 over the past 24 hours, the BBC reported. The doctor, Thangamutha Sathiyamorthy, blamed the Sri Lankan army for firing shells that landed next to two health facilities in Putumattalan, on the northern end of the tiny strip of the Sri Lankan coastline where tens of thousands are trapped by the fighting. This cannot be confirmed because independent journalists are banned by the government from the war-affected area. But the Sri Lankan army has denied attacking ordinary people in what the doctor told the Guardian newspaper was the worst day of bloodshed since the military campaign started.

Dr Sathiyamorthy said 22 people, including an 18-month-old child and a medical worker, were killed and 283 injured in the attack, which started soon after dawn yesterday. He described how he found dead and wounded civilians on the site of the first blasts, which went off as about 500 people queued beside a mother and baby clinic to receive milk powder and food rations."We were ready to distribute at 7.30, there were 500 people waiting, then suddenly shells fell," he said. Half an hour later he went back to assess the damage. "I saw there were bloodstains on the road, I saw there were slippers and sandals."The doctor, regional director of Kilinochchi health service, said more people were killed and injured in two later attacks. In the final attack, at about 11am, one member of the hospital staff was killed and another seriously injured.

Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped by the fighting between the Sri Lanka military and Tamil Tigers rebels. Since stepping up the military campaign since the start of the year the Sri Lankan armed forces have driven the last remnants of the once-powerful Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) into a narrow strip of land estimated to be no larger than 20 sq km. Estimates of the number of civilians trapped alongside them vary, with the UN putting the figure at about 100,000 and Sri Lankan authorities claiming it is no more than 40,000.

Yesterday Dr Sathiyamorthy said conditions inside the no-fire zone were now desperate, with 13 people dead from starvation and 69% of children below the age of five showing signs of malnutrition. "Of course the food supply is inadequate. Many children are at risk. Yesterday we distributed milk powder and I saw very thin children coming to the clinic," he said.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children