The latest on Sri Lanka: "an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe"

Link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/2413833/Thousands-flee-Sri-Lanka-war-zone

According to Stuff article 'Thousands flee Sri Lanka War Zone':

“Thousands of people waded across a vast lagoon under a hail of rebel gunfire, breaking out of Sri Lanka's war zone in a mass exodus that left four people dead.
In the tiny coastal strip they had fled, unrelenting shelling forced health workers to abandon the only hospital in the area, leaving hundreds of wounded patients begging for food and water.
The Red Cross called the fate of the wounded "an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe."
The government, which denies shelling the area, cornered the Tamil Tigers on a spit squeezed between the sea and a lagoon and vowed to finish off the rebels after 25 years of civil war.
The rebels, who demand a homeland for the ethnic Tamil minority, once controlled a shadow state across the north.
As the military pressed ahead with its offensive, 2,700 civilians braved rebel gunfire and waded across the lagoon into government-controlled territory.
Another 2,000 civilians were waiting on the far shore to escape. In addition to the dead, 14 people were wounded by rebel gunfire, said military officials.
The rebels have denied accusations they were holding the civilians as human shields and shooting at those trying to flee.
Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred journalists and most aid workers from the conflict zone.
Nearly 200,000 civilians have escaped the war zone in recent months and are being held in overwhelmed displacement camps.
The government has called on the estimated 50,000 people still trapped by the fighting to follow their lead, saying that only their presence is preventing the military from wiping out the rebels.
The UN said last month that nearly 6,500 civilians were killed in three months of fighting this year.
Incessant shelling in the war zone over the past six days has killed hundreds more, including about 100 civilians who died in two strikes on the makeshift hospital, health officials said.
Though the number of wounded was rapidly increasing, doctors and aides abandoned the facility because the shelling made it too risky to work there.
About 400 badly wounded patients remained inside Thursday in desperate need of treatment, along with more than 100 bodies waiting to be buried. Many other wounded civilians fled the hospital for safety as well.
The medical staff huddled in a nearby bunker and tried to ignore the cries of patients begging for help, said a health official.
A Red Cross ferry attempting to deliver desperately needed food aid and evacuate the wounded had to turn back for the third day because of the violence.
"Our staff are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe," said Pierre Krahenbuhl, the International Committee of the Red Cross' director of operations.
"No humanitarian organisation can help them in the current circumstances. People are left to their own devices."
The Red Cross said the trapped civilians inside the war zone were taking cover in bunkers they had dug in the ground and were finding it even more difficult to get scarce drinking water and food.
"We need security and unimpeded access now in order to save hundreds of lives," he said.
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday demanded the rebels lay down their arms and release the civilians. He also admonished the government to stop firing artillery.
The UN Security Council issued similar demands to both sides and expressed grave concern at the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Both sides brushed off the criticism.”

Evidently, the situation in Sri Lanka is getting worse. It is very sad that innocent civilians are being caught between this incessant conflict between the government and the rebels. Both have reasonable motive for believing what they do but the actions they are taking are certainly not reasonable. I think the UN may need to intervene (steps to discuss Sri Lanka within the UN have started) and the Government and rebels need to come to a resolution that is not to the sacrifice of innocent civilians lives.

This cartoon demonstartes the complicated situation Sri Lanka is in, quite clearly...

[Title: In the Vice, by Tom Scott, 12/5/09, Source: Stuff]