Indian envoys met Sri Lanka's president on Friday after New Delhi demanded a truce in the closing phase of a 25-year war which UN data says may have killed almost 6,500 people in the last three months. A few kilometres (miles) from the front, thousands of refugees languished in the blazing tropical sun awaiting transport from the battlezone, where the military is fighting to deal a death blow to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Explosions boomed and smoke billowed from the remaining battlefield, formerly an army-declared no-fire zone but now all that remains of the self-declared state the LTTE has fought since the early 1970s to create for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils. "We are clearing mines and other entrapments. The progress has almost stopped because we have come across these things," 58th Army Division commander Brigadier Shavendra Silva told Reuters in Puttumatalan, on the north-eastern coast.
The military said more than 108,000 people had poured out of the dwindling rebel area since Monday, when troops blasted an earth barrier the LTTE built to block movement in or out of it.
Diplomatic pressure over the war has boiled over this week with the UN Security Council, the United States, India and others demanding Sri Lanka stop its offensive and the LTTE surrender to avert civilian casualties. Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and National Security Adviser M.K Narayanan flew into Colombo on Friday for a meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and then returned to India, Sri Lankan and Indian officials said.
There was no word on the content of their discussion. Thursday's call for a truce was a swift public reversal by India's Congress party-led ruling coalition, which backs efforts to wipe out a group India lists as a terrorist organisation. The military said its offensive had already slowed but would not stop.
Silva said around 15 soldiers had been killed and 75 wounded in the past few days: "My soldiers are suffering a fair number of casualties because we are trying to protect civilians." A UN working document given to the diplomatic community says 6,432 civilians have been killed and 13,946 have been wounded in fighting since the end of January. Two diplomats verified its authenticity. A UN spokesman declined to comment.
Sri Lanka has in the past argued UN figures are inflated and likely included LTTE fighters masquerading as non-combatants. Both sides accuse the other of firing on civilians, and both deny doing so. With access to the war zone limited to most outsiders and nearly all sources inside lacking full independence, getting clear data is difficult.