Tamil Tiger ceasefire rejected
Several thousand Sri Lankan civilians are being guided away from the Tamil fighting
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Sunday, 26, Apr 2009 09:35
The Sri Lankan government has rejected a unilateral ceasefire declared by the Tamil Tiger rebels amid concerns over civilian casualties in the country.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) called for an end to fighting after being trapped by government forces in a small area populated by civilians in the north.
In a statement the LTTE said it was responding to calls made by the UN, the EU and various national governments over the "unprecedented humanitarian crisis" by calling the ceasefire.
However, the Sri Lankan defence chief Gotabaya Rajapaksam dismissed the statement as "a joke" and suggested that only complete surrender would be accetable.
"They were not fighting with us, they were running from us," he told the Reuters news agency.
"There is no need of a ceasefire. They must surrender. That is it."
According to the latest figures, as many as 200,000 people have been moved out of the combat zone to internment camps, while several thousand others remain trapped.
No official civilian death toll is known since hostilities escalated earlier this year, although UN figures suggest it is more than 2,000.
Around 70,000 people have been killed in total since fighting began between the national government and the seperatist Tamils in the early 1980s.