Heavy exodus from war-ravaged north zone, Sri Lanka says

Colombo: More than 23,000 civilians escaped last month from a war zone in Sri Lanka's north, where the military is close to crushing the Tamil rebels and ending a 25-year civil war, the government said on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped by the fighting as the military has rolled up a series of battlefield victories and pushed the rebels into a small sliver of beach and land - measuring just 21 square kilometres - on the northeast coast.

The 23,606 who fled in March was down from the nearly 33,000 who escaped in February, but the fighting last month was confined to a smaller area and it was not as easy to flee.

The rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), have denied accusations that they are holding the people as human shields and have fired on them to stop them from fleeing.

Military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara told a news conference that the fighting in some cases was just 400 yards (metres) from the edge of a government-declared "no-fire" zone.

"Troops are operating close to the safe zone," he told a news conference. Nanayakkara said more than 62,000 people have now fled the fighting.

Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella estimated there were 30,000 to 40,000 civilians still trapped in the area.

Rambukwella repeated comments by President Mahinda Rajapaksa rejecting calls for a cease-fire, saying it would give the rebels a chance to rearm and regroup.

"It is not something that is possible," he said.

Still, Rambukwella said the military would pause its attacks when there were worries about civilian casualties. He said the military had done that numerous times in the past.