04/23/2011
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The Island
The key allegation in the Ban Ki-moon panel report on Sri Lanka is the shelling of civilian targets and hospitals during the last phases of the war. Of paramount importance is the methodology used by the panel in collating their information. An account given on pages 20 and 25 of this report states very clearly that the UN and other INGOs had left the LTTE held areas by the end of September 2008 and from that moment on there were no continuously present international observers in the Vanni. The last UN officials who transported food into the Vanni left on January 29, 2009, and the Last ICRC international staff were evacuated from the Vanni by ship from Puthumathalan on February 10, 2009. Thereafter, until the end of the war, only the ICRC would have access to the Vanni and that too took the form of a few ICRC officials disembarking on the Puthumathalan beach to bring food and take away civilian patients by ship.