Sri Lanka military snubs calls for truce as civilians caught in Tamil Tigers' demise

The last remaining handful of fighters for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, are trapped in a tiny parcel of jungle with more than a hundred thousand civilians, as Sri Lankan troops continue to bombard them despite urgent international calls for a cease fire. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the last few days by the onrushing army, and many more will likely die as the last hospital in the shrinking war zone was evacuated on Feb 3 after several days of artillery attacks that apparently included cluster munitions. U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss told The Associated Press that 15 local U.N. staffers and 81 family members who were trapped near the hospital have also fled. Weiss claimed that the hospital had been hit by cluster munitions, though the government categorically denies this. A military spokesman said that the army does not possess the armaments to deploy cluster munitions. The fighting is concentrated in a sliver of land of about 30 square miles along the northeast coast of this island nation off the tip of India. After a months-long push by the military into the northern jungles and towns, the rebels appear on the verge of defeat. after. More than 70,000 people have been killed in a 25-year civil war seeking a separate homeland for the country's minority Tamils fighting. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other aid agencies estimate that as many as 250,000 civilians are trapped along with approximately 600 remaining Tamil fighters in the tiny patch of jungle. The army overran the last town held by the Tigers on Feb 2 and captured their only remaining airstrip the following day. The loss of the airstrip was primarily psychological, as the Tigers' air force consists of only a few single-engine planes. The US, the European Union, and Sri Lanka's other principal allies, Japan and Norway, have made urgent appeals to the government for an immediate cease fire, but the government scoffed at the proposal. The Defense Secretary said "nothing short of unconditional surrender" would be acceptable, although he did allow for the possibility of limited amnesty. The Prime Minister, calling the military assault a "humanitarian operation" to "liberate the Tamils from terrorist oppression", accused the international community of siding with the separatists.