Mum gives birth on way to refugee camp as thousands flee Sri Lanka war zone

A woman giving birth in a bus carrying her to a refugee camp was among the 100,000 people fleeing Sri Lanka's war zone, as the United Nations warned those still trapped remain in grave danger.The four-day exodus was beginning to slow down with more than 103,000 arriving in army-held areas since troops cleared a barrier it said the Tamil Tigers had built to stop them. Despite the massive outpouring, the UN security council said last night it had "deep concern" for the welfare of those remaining inside the Tamil held area, a narrow coastal strip surrounded by troops aiming to win Asia's longest-running war.

The people who have fled have been on foot for days, and stuck in the war zone with minimal food, water or medical care, aid agencies said. Many families have been spilt up as the masses overwhelm bursting refugee camps. Pictures released by the government showed scores of people carrying their belongings on their backs, and others helping the sick or elderly to move. One showed a woman giving birth inside a bus carrying her to a refugee camp, with two midwives helping deliver the child.Others were pictured arriving at the overloaded camps by sea.

United Nations spokesman Gordon Weiss said the world body had confirmed that between 90,000 and 100,000 people have left the combat zone since Monday. They will join 80,000 people already in refugee camps away from the front. "There is serious overcrowding in the camps and it is only to get worse in coming days," Weiss said in the Indian Ocean Island’s capital, Colombo. "It is a huge exodus and it threatens to overwhelm the available systems."

The United Nations had urged the government of Sri Lanka to identify new sites and clear them as soon as possible to accommodate the outpouring, he said."A huge influx of people like this means you are going to have a crisis, especially in an underdeveloped area like Vavuniya," Tony Senewiratne, national director for Habitat for Humanity, a shelter organisation told the BBC."If you can visualise a very dry area where temperatures rise to about 35C, it's hot and humid, the ground has little shade. People are confined to small tents, tarpaulin or plastic. During the heat of the day it would be impossible to stay inside and there is no shelter outside," said Mr Senewiratne. "It is going to be a difficult issue for anyone to solve quickly," he said.

Another major concern for rights groups has been the lack of freedom of movement between camps. Families have been split up and, according to a statement by Medecins Sans Frontieres, have not been able to find out about relatives who may be in other camps. Mutthiahi Linganathan arrived in one of the camps three weeks ago and describes how he ran and crawled through the war zone to escape the firing.He told the BBC the toilets were working but there was a shortage of drinking water. "They don't allow us to meet our relatives. I have three sons studying in Vavuniya. I want to go and live with them. But here they don't allow me even to meet them," he said.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children