Sri Lankan cluster bombs ‘hit hospital’

After days of shelling had sent patients fleeing the Puthukkudiyiruppu hospital, the Red Cross evacuated the staff and wounded, effectively closing the last remaining medical facility in the area.

UN spokesman Gordon Weiss said that 15 UN staffers and 81 family members who was trapped near the hospital had fled en masse after the area had been pounded for more than 16 hours.

Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied firing the cluster bombs.

Cluster munitions are controversial because they spread bomblets over a wide area and they do not explode immediately, thus posing a danger to civilians long after fighting ends.

Mr Weiss said that 52 civilians had been killed and 80 wounded in fighting inside and outside a government-designated safe zone on Tuesday, which is an area of territory held by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerillas that the Sri Lankan military has pledged not to strike.

Sri Lanka marked its 61st independence day with a military parade on Tuesday.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa repeated claims that the military stands on the verge of crushing the LTTE, which has waged a 25-year war for a separate homeland for the country’s Tamil minority.

The fighting is concentrated in a sliver of coastal land of about 30 square miles, where an estimated 250,000 Tamil civilians are trapped along with LTTE fighters.

Earlier in the week, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat called on New Delhi and the UN to “make all efforts to see that the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE come to an understanding to ensure safe passage for the civilian population.”

Mr Karat emphasised that the CPI(M) distinguishes between the LTTE and the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.

He said that his party has “a consistent stand on the just right of the Tamils of the north and the east for autonomy through devolution of powers.”

Mr Karat said that Sri Lanka appears to be “paying more attention to a military solution than a political solution.”

The US and British governments released a joint statement on Wednesday calling on both sides to agree to a temporary ceasefire to allow the civilians and wounded to leave the conflict area and to give humanitarian agencies access to the war zone.

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