LTTE Tigers lose more land: Sri Lanka

Agencies

Colombo: Government forces drove deeper into the Tamil Tigers' dwindling stronghold, confining the rebel group that once controlled a vast swath of northern Sri Lanka to an area smaller than Manhattan, the military said Friday.

The government has said it is on the verge of destroying the rebels and ending the Indian Ocean island nation's quarter-century civil war.

Army troops entered Puthukkudiyiruppu, the last town under rebel control, on Tuesday and the two sides continued to wage fierce house-to-house battles, the military said. If the town falls, the rebels will be confined to a small coastal strip, some villages and a patch of jungle.

The recent military gains have left the group in control of 22 square miles (58 square kilometers) of land, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. That is slightly smaller than the New York City borough.

Aid groups estimate 200,000 ethnic Tamil civilians are trapped in that area along with the rebels and have expressed increasing concerns about their safety. Human Rights Watch reported last week that an estimated 2,000 civilians have been killed in the recent fighting.

Five civilians who were wounded in air strikes and artillery fire Friday died, Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah said from a makeshift hospital in the war zone. Forty-one others are being treated for their wounds, he said.

Meanwhile, the group Doctors Without Borders expressed outrage that so little has been done for the civilians trapped in rebel territory, calling their condition ``desperate and unacceptable.'' The voluntary organization for medical practitioners urged the government and rebels to ensure the safety of civilians and allow them access to humanitarian assistance.

It said 90 percent of the injured people who arrive at its hospital in northern Vavuniya town, just outside the war zone, have gunshot or shrapnel wounds from fleeing rebel territory.

The rebels once controlled a de facto state measuring about 5,600 square miles (15,000 square kilometers). A recent government offensive drove them into a broad retreat and left them on the brink of defeat.

Verification of the fighting is not available because independent journalists are barred from the war zone.

The Tamil Tigers, listed as a terror group by the U.S. and European Union, have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for ethnic Tamils after decades of marginalization by governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting.