[EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT: AUDIO]

More than 300 civilians feared killed, people bleed to death on streets

[TamilNet, Monday, 26 January 2009, 15:30 GMT]
In a scene of carnage of untold proportion on civilian targets hit by hundreds of Sri Lanka Army fired artillery shells, more than 300 people have died and several hundreds are bleeding to death within the last 24 hours, amidst pouring rain inside the 'saftey zone' declared by the Colombo government. Houses and vehicles burn for a stretch of three km between Va’l’lipunam Kaa’li temple and Moongkilaa’ru towards Paranthan road, reports from Vanni said on Monday. Unattended bodies and injured people unable to move are lying around everywhere, while a remaining doctor fled and helpless ICRC officials virtually cried at the scene from their bunkers, TamilNet correspondent said.

TamilNet publishes direct eyewitness accounts from the street of Udaiyaarkaddu.

Nearly 400,000 people have been told by the army to confine themselves to a stretch of 30 square km. A part of this terrain is marsh and jungle. People have flocked themselves in the remaining patches of coconut groves and they stay there without any amenities or food and with the risk of being attacked even in the ‘safety zone’.

There is only one road in the locality, which is choked by fleeing people. Even this road is targeted by barrage of shells and people have died. The shelling prevents even people from fleeing.

The exact number of people died could be more, as it is not possible to take a count in the other places.

Those who are injured are sure to die, as the remaining two hospitals, which were functioning at Udaiyaarkaddu and Va'l'lipunam (Mullaiththeevu hospital), are defunct now.

The injured, if cannot move on their own, are left unattended to bleed to death.

The fleeing people, including infants had nothing to eat, mother of a three months old child, S. Thayalini, told TamilNet correspondent.

"It is not merely a humanitarian crisis, but a shame on human civilization. What a world, watching and abetting the whole thing, having no conscience, said K. Kamalanthan," a social activist who talked to TamilNet while fleeing Udaiyaarkaddu.

In the mean time, Indian and International News Agencies operating from Colombo publish no accounts of the mass genocide, taking place in Vanni. They continue to eulogize Colombo’s military victories, painting a picture of LTTE ‘terrorists’ using civilians as human shield.

These news agencies, which had no guts of finding out what is happening on their own, are spinning stories for the government and are a shame to the profession of journalism and to the Information Age. They cannot deny their role of being a party to the war crime, said a Tamil journalist among the IDPs.

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