Mangled bodies, torn limbs litter Safe Zone - medical official

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2009, 22:29 GMT]
"Death in most brutal form has become common within the Safety Zone. The area littered with mangled bodies, torn limbs, and blood soaked soil appears more horrific than what one finds inside a butchers shop," a lady medical staff working out of a school-building converted into the temporary primary surgical care centre at Puthumaaththa'lan, told TamilNet Sunday. She also pointed out that a great number of small children have died in the last few days because of the SLA's ceaseless shelling and firing.



The number of people coming to the hospital with bullet injuries has dramatically increased in the past few days, she said, and noted that a similar increase has also occured of civilians who are admitted with shrapnel and shell injuries.

Even as the Tamil civilians in the safe zone go about their routine daily activities, they are hit by bullets. By the time they are brought to the hospital, they die, she observed.

The lady medical staff at the makeshift hospital pointed out that the casualties were highest on Sunday morning as continuous shelling on the roads near the hospital had prevented the injured from being taken to the hospital sooner.

"We were directed to drive to the injury site and bring the wounded to the hospital in our vehicles, but we simply couldn't leave because of the continuous shelling," she said and added that as a result of the delay several children had succumbed to their injuries.

In one incident, children of two families survived, but their parents were killed by shells, the medical staffer said.

The injured are laid out on tarpaulin sheets and given medication that cannot often save them. "We watch them die in great pain," she said.



Chronology: