Amnesty International is also demanding that the Sri Lankan Government ensures that displaced people who have fled the conflict zone to transit centres do not face improper restriction on their movement and are kept safe. Fewer than 6,000 people from the Wanni have sought shelter in government held areas since December. They are held in de facto detention centres and are vulnerable to abuses by government forces.

The last shipment of food to reach the civilian population, which is totally dependent on outside aid, went in on 29 January. Community-based organisations fear that thousands of civilians are in critical danger in a rapidly deteriorating situation as the Sri Lankan armed forces attempt to regain all territory from the Tamil Tigers.

Amnesty International welcomes the announcement by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith that the Australian Government will contribute $5 million in additional humanitarian assistance to those affected by the fighting in Sri Lanka.

Amnesty International also welcomes the Australian Government's continuing calls on all those involved in the fighting to make protecting civilians an absolute priority, but we remain gravely concerned about the situation in the country.

Recent reports suggest both sides are violating the laws of war by targeting civilians and preventing them from escaping to safety. Amnesty International has received information that the LTTE has in at least one instance prevented injured civilians from moving to safer areas or accessing medical care, an act that could constitute a war crime. The Tamil Tigers have forcibly recruited civilians, including children, to build bunkers and serve as troops.

The government of Sri Lanka is carrying out military operations in areas with a civilian population. The aerial and artillery bombardment has reportedly led to civilian deaths, injuries, the destruction of property and mass displacement. Amnesty International has denounced the reported use of cluster bombs in a civilian area by the Sri Lankan military as a serious violation of international humanitarian law.

According to a UN spokesperson, the main hospital in the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu, has been hit by cluster bombs and had to be evacuated. The hospital, which has been subjected to several attacks in recent days, was reportedly bombarded by shelling for 16 hours.

The Sri Lankan government has held civilians who have already fled LTTE-held areas since March 2008 at so-called welfare villages. These camps are located at Kalimoddai and Sirukandal in Mannar district and Manik Farm and Nellumkulam in Vavuniya district. The Sri Lankan armed forces have severely restricted the ability of the displaced people held at these camps to move.

Amnesty International urges the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to immediately:

-Declare a temporary truce in the fighting to allow for the evacuation of civilians along humanitarian corridors and the introduction of humanitarian aid to those remaining;

• Ensure civilians in the conflict zone are given adequate information about the location of aid corridors and can reach these corridors in safety;

• Allow aid agencies to carry out their relief responsibilities and assist civilians and allow international monitors full access to these areas, so that they can monitor the human rights situation in the area and observe the implementation of the truce;

• Ensure reception arrangements for displaced people fleeing the combat zone meet international standards;

• Ensure displaced people housed in transit centres in government-held areas have freedom of movement and are accessible to independent humanitarian aid and observers;

• Allow an interagency assessment team from the United Nations to investigate conditions on the ground and the deployment of human rights monitors in the areas affected by the fighting.

Amnesty International endorses the efforts by the international community to bring an end to the fighting in Sri Lanka and to ensure the security of the civilian population.

The United States and Britain have now called on both the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to agree to a temporary ceasefire period to allow civilians and the wounded to leave the conflict area and to grant access for humanitarian agencies. The United States, European Union, Japan and Norway have urged Tamil Tiger rebels to consider surrendering to avoid more deaths.

Sri Lanka's military has encircled the LTTE positions and says it is confident it will soon win a war that is one of Asia's longest-running conflicts. LTTE fighters are holding out in a 300-sq km area of jungle in Sri Lanka's northeast.

Some 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting since 1983.

Amnesty International is also calling upon Sri Lankan authorities to ensure that the country's media are allowed to work without restriction and in safety. More than a dozen media workers have been unlawfully killed in Sri Lanka since the beginning of 2006. Others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and allegedly disappeared while in the custody of security forces.

More and more, media workers are frightened to express alternative views in Sri Lanka. Amnesty International has received increasing reports of death threats to independent journalists.

Ensuring respect for human rights around the world relies in part on impartial and rigorous media coverage. The climate of impunity for attacks on the media has made it almost impossible to get an accurate impartial picture of what is happening in Sri Lanka.

http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/20188/