Sri Lanka’s artillery shells maimed 30,000 Tamil civilians

In a shocking revelation reinforcing the accusations on Sri Lanka of committing war-crimes, the award-winning French charity Handicap International said that more than 30,000 Tamil civilians were severely wounded by the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) artillery firing shells towards the Colombo demarcated “No Fire Zone” where more than 300,000 Tamils were holed-up obeying Sri Lanka Government’s directions in May 2009, during the final war against Liberation Tigers, UK’s Telegraph reported.

The disclosure of thousands of severely maimed and disabled civilian victims contradicts the claims of Sri Lanka’s president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has said his army rescued 280,000 "hostages" without any civilian casualties, Telegraph said.

Aid workers said nearly all of the people had been the victims of relentless Sri Lankan shelling of the civilian safe zone, the paper said.

The charity, which has a small factory producing artificial limbs in Batticaloa in Sri Lanka’s eastern province, has opened an emergency unit at one of the centres for people who fled the fighting, and is working with other suppliers to meet what it described a "huge demand,” Telegraph added.

Handicap International’s Sri Lanka director Satish Misra said he had established an emergency centre at Vavuniyaa last year in anticipation of the demand, and that a team of specialist physiotherapists and occupational therapists were now working with the victims.

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