Sri Lanka clashes continue
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
New Delhi, Aug 10, IRNA
Sri Lanka-Clashes
As the Lankan gov't continues its offensive against rebels to seize control over a water sluice gate, sporadic clashes continued between the Lankan military and LTTE while aid workers tried to avert a health crisis looming in overcrowded camps.
The government has repeatedly said it will continue an offensive to seize control of a rebel-held water sluice gate after its closure blocked irrigation for thousands of farmers and sparked the first ground fighting since a 2002 truce, Doordarshan News said here.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) re-opened the sluice on Wednesday, but the government says they must also surrender control of the area.
The rebels have refused, and have said ongoing army attacks amount to a declaration of war.
"The troops are still consolidating the area around it," said an army spokesman. "There is no heavy fighting."
However, the occasional distant crump of artillery could be heard from the northeastern port of Trincomalee, from where the government was again firing multi-barrel rockets Wednesday night.
A policeman was wounded overnight in the northwest Mannar district in a suspected Tiger attack, the army said.
As fighting raged south of Trincomalee, hit-and-run attacks in Mannar have increased while the rest of the island has been quiet.
Aid workers say the human cost has already been high, although it will become much worse if the two-decade civil war that has already killed more than 65,000 people escalates to cover more of the north and east, where the Tigers want a separate homeland for minority Tamils.
Aid workers say there are around 3,000 people who have sought refuge in schools and religious sites around Mutur itself while no international agency has reached Tiger territory, where the rebels say civilians have been hit by days of government bombing and artillery strikes.
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