In addition, UNICEF helped to run this 'orphanage', possibly a school or programme for former child soldiers. Gov't of Sri Lanka claims the school was a training camps for child soldiers. In any case, more than 60 CHILDREN were massacred - I am utterly stunned. More than 800 civilians have died these past few months due to intensified fighting. International gaze averted to Middle East, all is lost:
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers said a government bombing raid hit an orphanage in rebel territory in the island's north on Monday, killing 43 schoolgirls and wounding 60 as the worst fighting since a 2002 truce raged.
"The Sri Lankan air force bombed the premises of an orphanage where schoolgirls were studying first aid," Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) spokesman I. Ilanthirayan said. "Forty-three... students were killed and 60 wounded."
A military source said air raids had been launched on rebel territory on Monday but said they had no details of targets hit or casualties.
By Simon Gardner
COLOMBO (Reuters) - Seven people were killed and 17 others were injured on Monday, when a security forces convoy escorting a Pakistan embassy vehicle was hit by a Claymore fragmentation mine, officials and bomb squad officers said.
A driver from the convoy said the embassy vehicle was slightly damaged, but no one was hurt. He refused to identify any passengers in the vehicle. The Pakistani ambassador was uninjured, the bomb squad said.
"Seven people were dead on arrival. We have 17 other people who are injured and being treated now," Colombo National Hospital director Hector Weerasinghe.
The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital, and hit just hours after a suspected Tamil Tiger front threatened to attack civilians if the military continued attacks on Tamil Tiger rebel territory.
The rebels had earlier on Monday accused the government of bombing an orphanage in rebel territory and killing 43 schoolgirls.
A driver from the convoy which was escorting a Pakistan embassy vehicle said he believed the convoy had been hit by two Claymore fragmentation mines.
The embassy vehicle was slightly damaged, but nobody in it was injured.
The Pakistani Embassy was immediately available for comment.
A three wheeler taxi was on fire. The other vehicles in the convoy continued away from the site of the blast. Ambulances rushed to the scene.
The blast shook the windows of the Reuters office in the capital, and comes just hours after a suspected Tamil Tiger front threatened to attack civilians if the military continued attacks on Tamil Tiger rebel territory.
FIGHTING DISPLACES 100,000
The government accused the rebels of shelling civilian areas in the northern Jaffna peninsula, saying it feared fatalities as the worst fighting since a 2002 ceasefire raged on.
The military said it had launched air strikes on identified Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) targets such as camps in the northeast, but gave no further details.
With contact with the conflict-hit areas limited, the LTTE report on the bombing of the orphanage could not be immediately confirmed. Aid workers estimate around 100,000 people have been displaced during three weeks of fighting. Dozens are confirmed dead, and many fear the eventual death toll will be far higher.
"The Sri Lankan air force bombed the premises of an orphanage where schoolgirls were studying first aid," Tiger military spokesman Rasiah Ilanthiraiyan said. "Forty-three ... students were killed and 60 wounded."
He said the students were between 15 and 18 years old.
The government said civilian casualties were also likely around the Jaffna peninsula, where the LTTE over-ran government forward positions on Saturday, although the army says they had since been repulsed. The rebels, who ignored a government demand to surrender, are furious at President Mahinda Rajapakse's outright rejection of their demands for a separate ethnic homeland for Tamils in the island's north and east.
"They have mingled with civilians and are calling artillery fire onto the areas of the security forces," said Major Upali Rajapakse of the National Security Center. "It is falling in and around civilian areas. There has to be civilian dead."
He said the country's east was quiet but artillery rained down on Kayts island, just to the west of Jaffna town, and was being fired across a no-man's land that separates government from rebel territory around 20 miles to the east.
STOCKPILING FOOD
The pro-rebel Web site www.tamilnet.com said 15 civilians were killed when army rockets and shells hit a church, but there was no independent confirmation.
Jaffna residents flocked to shops to stockpile food after the army briefly lifted a curfew. With no prospect of fresh supplies from the country's south, prices of basic goods were soaring.
"We are used to being displaced, but this time it came about so suddenly we were ill-prepared," said 50-year-old fisherman Ledil Amaldas, who fled his coastal village and is staying with a relative in Jaffna.
"I have 5,000 rupees ($48) with me," he said, standing in a long queue to buy sugar and flour. "I hope we can manage for another 12-14 days. After that I don't know what will happen."
The High Security Zone Residents Liberation Force (HSZRLF), a presumed Tiger front group that says it wants the military out of civilian areas, said if the military targeted minority Tamils then bombs would explode in the majority Sinhalese south.
We regret to inform that the HSZRLF's Central Committee has given orders to all cadres stationed across the island to carry out attacks against civilian targets in southern Sri Lanka if Sri Lankan armed forces continue to massacre innocent unarmed civilians in the Northeast," it said in a faxed statement.
The HSZRLF claimed responsibility for previous attacks on troops in the north, and proclaimed a ceasefire in early 2006 when the Tigers went to peace talks before claiming more attacks in April. Analysts say it is clearly a Tiger front.
Many of Sri Lanka's most prominent Tamils come from Jaffna and analysts say the Tigers are bent on eventually capturing a town that they have controlled in previous phases of a war which has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983.
