COLOMBO, (Reuters) – Thousands more civilians surged out of Sri Lanka’s war zone yesterday while soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels fought the apparent endgame of Asia’s longest-running war despite calls to protect those still trapped.
In the third day since troops blasted through a massive earthen wall built by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and unleashed the exodus, the military said at least 100,000 people had been registered for onward transit to refugee camps.
Among those who came out was the LTTE’s ex-spokesman Daya Master, a former schoolteacher who was the Tigers’ voice to the English-speaking world for years and arranged media visits to the self-declared state the separatists had fought to create.
The military said he was the most senior rebel to surrender, an act that is in contravention of LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran’s dictate that followers wear cyanide vials to be taken in case of capture.
He surrendered along with the translator for the late LTTE political head S.P. Thamilselvan, as troops thrust deeper into a former army-declared no-fire zone that is now the last battleground in a war that erupted in 1983.
For a third straight day, the military progress drove the Colombo Stock Exchange higher, traders said. It closed up 1.4 percent, near a three-month high.
The military says troops now control all but 13 square km (5 sq miles) of the Indian Ocean island, where the remnants of the LTTE and Prabhakaran fought to create a separate state for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority.
“Confrontations are taking place. Whenever we come across LTTE cadres, we are fighting them. The rescue operation is continuing,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
The number of people who have fled this year is now around 173,439, according to the military tally.
The United Nations confirmed this week’s outflow.
“It is 60,000 plus and counting, and we have heard various reports of up to 110,000 coming out,” said the U.N. spokesman in Colombo, Gordon Weiss. He cautioned the reports were preliminary and not confirmed.
