UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was very concerned about the increasing violence in Sri Lanka and the escalation that had resulted from a water dispute in the northeast, a UN spokesman said yesterday in a press briefing.

 

The secretary-general was disturbed by reports that there have been many civilian victims, including children, as well as large displacements of people.

 

Annan called on parties to allow humanitarian agencies unimpeded access to the affected population. The secretary-general noted the efforts underway by Norway to resolve the conflict, and called on the parties to cease hostilities immediately to create a favorable climate for negotiations over the water issue.

 

He reiterated his appeal to the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to resume peace talks.

 

The rebels and army fought with artillery, mortar bombs and small arms fire yesterday in and around the town of Muttur in the eastern district of Trincomalee. The fighting was sparked off by the current spat between the rebels and the government over the shutdown of a sluice gate.

 

The fighting has overshadowed the fragile Norwegian-backed ceasefire, and the two sides, however, keep on denying claims that a full-scale war had returned to the island's north and eastern provinces for the first time since the truce accord of February 2002.

 

Shells hit Sri Lanka schools; 18 dead

 

Artillery fire hit three schools yesterday in Muttur where residents had taken shelter to escape fighting, killing 18 people, military officials said.

 

Maj. Upali Rajapakse, a military spokesman, blamed Tamil Tiger rebels for the artillery fire in Muttur, but the pro-rebel TamilNet website blamed government forces for at least one of the school attacks, where 10 people died. The rebels have made no mention of the other two schools.

 

(Xinhua News Agency, Chinadaily.com.cn via agencies August 4, 2006)