U.N. council voices "deep concern" about Sri Lanka

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council expressed concern on Wednesday about the humanitarian situation in northern Sri Lanka, where tens of thousands of civilians trapped in rebel territory are in imminent danger.

"The Security Council members, we expressed our deep concern about the humanitarian situation ... and the plight of the civilians trapped within the conflict area," Mexican U.N. Ambassador Claude Heller told reporters after an informal meeting of the 15-nation council on Sri Lanka.

In a summary of the closed-door meeting, he said council members "strongly condemned" the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), who are apparently using civilians trapped in a 5 square mile (13 square km) strip of land as human shields.

Council diplomats said China, Russia and others had opposed the idea of a formal discussion of the Sri Lankan war, viewing it instead as an internal matter for the Sri Lankans.

That, they said, is why the council took no action apart from agreeing that Heller, the council's rotating president, would speak informally to the press about the meeting.

British Ambassador John Sawers summarized the report the council received from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, who visited Sri Lanka last week.

Nambiar described a "desperate humanitarian situation," he said. Sawers also said that council members welcomed the news that tens of thousands had escaped the conflict zone.

In the third day since troops blasted through a massive earthen wall built by the LTTE and unleashed the exodus, the Sri Lankan military said at least 100,000 people had been registered for onward transit to displaced persons camps.