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| Sri Lanka |
| Deadly clashes as UN envoy tours Sri Lanka |
| 2007-08-09 |
| Six people died in clashes across Sri Lanka's embattled northern and eastern districts as a top UN relief envoy visited, officials and rebels said Wednesday. Soldiers on foot patrol fired at a group of Tamil Tiger rebels in the eastern district of Trincomalee on Tuesday, killing two guerrillas, defence officials said. Another suspected rebel blew himself up to avoid being captured in the northern district of Vavuniya on Tuesday, officials said, adding that troops also found a dead body of an unidentified person in the same district. A pro-rebel website said two civilians had been shot dead in Vavuniya on Tuesday. The killings came as John Holmes, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, toured the troubled regions to inspect relief work. Holmes was due to meet President Mahinda Rajapakse on Thursday at the end of his four-day visit, officials said. Renegades to disarm: A breakaway faction of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers seen allied to the state said on Wednesday it would dissolve its military wing once its security was ensured, the first such offer since it was set up three years ago. Aid workers say members of the Karuna group, which split from the mainstream Tigers in 2004 and who analysts say are helping the military to fight the Tigers, are roaming armed in the eastern district of Batticaloa, unimpeded by the state. The group, accused of rights abuses such as abductions and forced recruitment, had earlier refused to lay down arms until their Tamil Tiger foes do so. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 From pr0n star to UN bureaucrat - that is one serious decline. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-08-09 00:33 |
| #1 The killings came as John Holmes, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, toured the troubled regions to inspect relief work. I thought he was dead? Sorry to see he's sunk to this level though... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-08-09 00:18 |