ICRC says heavy fighting blocks evacuation of injured

May 12, 2009, 14:24 GMT

Colombo - An attempt by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to evacuate wounded and sick persons from a combat zone in north-eastern Sri Lanka failed due to heavy fighting in the region, the organisation said Tuesday.

The ICRC was also trying to deliver 25 tons of food for thousands of civilians trapped in the north-eastern part of the Mullativu district but this effort, too, failed as a ship carrying the food could not get closer to the coast.

'Lack of security forced our ferry to stay offshore for the entire day today, only kilometres from the conflict area. As night approached, it had to sail back to its base further south in Pulmoddai,' said the ICRC's head of delegation in Sri Lanka, Paul Castella, in Colombo.

'Evacuating the wounded and sick - among them children and elderly people whose lives are in danger is the only way they will be able to receive suitable medical treatment: they need to be evacuated as soon as possible,' the ICRC statement said.

The last time the ICRC-chartered ferry was able to reach the conflict area was on May 9 when it unloaded food and life-saving medical supplies, and evacuated 516 wounded and sick patients and their accompanying relatives.

But, since then there has been heavy civilian casualties with a doctor in the area claiming that there were about 1,200 injured persons while 400 deaths were reported over the weekend. In a second incident Tuesday, 47 civilians were reported killed and over 50 injured, he said.

The statement could not be independently verified as journalists are not allowed into the area.

The ICRC said that as the fighting draws ever closer, thousands of people trapped along a narrow coastal strip north of Muallaitivu are being forced to take cover most of the time in improvised trenches and shelters to try to avoid the exchanges of fire between government troops and fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

'The civilians also suffer from a lack of food, drinking water and proper medical care. The plight of the people remaining in the combat area is desperate,' said Castella. 'We need unimpeded access to them in order to save lives.'

Since mid-February, the ICRC has been able to evacuate nearly 14,000 people from the area and deliver over 2,350 metric tonnes of food and other essential items.