Soldiers and Tamil Tiger rebels traded artillery and mortar fire in northern Sri Lanka today, as schools closed over fears that civilians could be targeted by the insurgents.
Clashes in northern and eastern Sri Lanka over the past four weeks have undermined the country's already shaky ceasefire.
A policeman stands near the site of an explosion in Colombo yesterday
Violence continued unabated today on the northern Jaffna Peninsula, the heartland of the Tamil minority in whose name the Tigers claim to fight.
Military spokesman Brig. Athula Jayawardana said soldiers faced sporadic rebel attacks around Muhumalai, a village along the frontier that separates government and Tamil Tiger territory, although fighting has tapered off.
He said that following the weekend's intense fighting, soldiers had recovered bodies of 79 rebels out of more than 200 believed killed.
He said 90 soldiers and sailors were also killed. The Tigers had no immediate comment on the death toll, but each side routinely disputes figures offered by the other, and reliable casualty counts are nearly impossible to come by.
Aid workers estimate that about 100,000 people have been displaced in northern and eastern Sri Lanka since July by the fighting, the worst seen there since a 2002 ceasefire.
In the port of Jaffna, on the tip of the northern peninsula, a curfew was imposed over the weekend, and many of the city's 500,000 people scurried to secure food, fuel and other supplies during daily two-hour breaks in the clampdown.
But with the city virtually cut off because of the fighting, prices were rising fast — black market kerosene was going for five time its normal price. Mobile phones were also barely working, and there was only about an hour of electricity a day.
The 2002 truce was intended to halt more than two decades of bloodshed between the government, dominated by Sri Lanka's 14 million Sinhalese, and the rebels, who have been fighting since 1983 for an independent homeland for the country's 3.2 million Tamils.
In fighting yesterday, Sri Lankan air force jets bombed the north-eastern Mullaitivu district, deep inside rebel territory.
A pro-rebel website, citing officials from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, reported that 61 girls who were studying there were killed and another 60 were injured.
The Sri Lankan Air Force said the military had proof that the site was a rebel base.
An official from a Nordic cease-fire monitoring team said the site appeared to be a home for students between 17 and 20 years old. The official said a monitor who visited the site saw only 19 bodies at a nearby hospital, but believed there may have been more elsewhere.
Hours later, in Colombo, a suicide bomber in an auto rickshaw blew himself up as a car carrying Pakistan's high commissioner, Basir Ali Mohmand, passed along a crowded road.
At least seven people were killed, including four army commandos guarding the envoy. Another 10 people were wounded in the bombing less than a mile from the residence of President Mahinda Rajapakse.
The diplomat, who was believed to be the target of the blast, escaped unhurt, he said, blaming the Tigers for the attack. Pakistan is a major supplier of arms to Sri Lanka's military.
AP