100 children dead in Sri Lanka weekend ‘bloodbath’

More than 100 Sri Lankan children were among those who died at the weekend during what the United Nations has dubbed a "bloodbath.” A doctor working in the war zone said yesterday that fierce shelling killed at least 378 people.

Meanwhile, the military spokesman for the Tamil Tiger rebels, Ilanthirayan, has been seriously wounded in fighting. Mr Ilanthirayan suffered heavy injuries in an attack by the Sri Lankan army on Sunday, the pro-rebel website TamilNet said. The Sri Lankan defence ministry said a senior rebel officer also died in fighting last week. The UN had warned several times of a potential bloodbath in the area, said UN spokesman Gordon Weiss in the capital, Colombo.

It estimates that about 50,000 civilians are trapped by the conflict in a three kilometre square strip of land. "The large-scale killing of civilians, including the death of over 100 children, over the weekend shows that the bloodbath scenario has become a reality," Mr Weiss added.

A doctor working in the war zone said yesterday that the bodies of 378 people had been registered at his hospital. He said 1,122 others had been injured - and more bodies were lying on beaches and by the sides of roads. He said heavy arms appeared to have been fired from government-run territory into a mainly civilian area under the rebel control. But the army has denied shelling the designated "safe zone" for civilians. The government said the Tigers had done the firing. But because reporters are banned from the war zone, it is impossible to confirm the claims.

The issue of civilian casualties is highly sensitive and the state-owned Daily News on Monday makes no mention of the incident at all, according to the BBC's correspondent in Colombo says. Meanwhile, the pro-rebel TamilNet website said a key Tamil rebel figure has been seriously wounded. Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband is to co-sponsor informal discussions in New York about the island's humanitarian situation.

The Sri Lankan government has shrugged off calls from him and other diplomats for a ceasefire in the north: it says it is about to defeat the rebels permanently and that a ceasefire would not help civilians. The Tamil Tigers have fought for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority since 1983.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the war.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children