Sri Lankan Rebels Declare Cease-Fire

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have declared a unilateral cease-fire amid growing concern for tens of thousands of civilians trapped amid the fighting.

A rebel statement e-mailed to The Associated Press on Sunday said it would stop its military operations immediately.

The rebels are cornered in a tiny strip of land on Sri Lanka's northeastern coast. The United Nations and others have called for a negotiated truce to allow civilians trapped in the sliver of territory to escape.

More than 100,000 civilians have fled the tiny coastal strip which was still under rebel control, flooding hospitals in the north and overwhelming government-run displacement camps, according to aid workers.

In the capital, Colombo, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has set up makeshift camps for thousands fleeing the fighting.

Aid groups estimate 50,000 civilians remain trapped in the war zone. But the rebels say the number of trapped civilians is three times that estimate.

There was no immediate comment from the military. But it has brushed off previous calls for a cease-fire, saying the rebels will use a pause to regroup. The fighting continued, with the military reporting a string of battles and sniper attacks in the war zone on Saturday.

The government has pushed deep into the Tamil Tigers' strongholds in the north in recent months, surrounding the beleaguered rebels and vowing to end the quarter-century-long war. But reports have grown of starvation and casualties among tens of thousands of civilians.

The U.N. says nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed in the fighting over the past three months. U.N. Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said Saturday that the trapped civilians were suffering a "very high" casualty rate, and from lack of food, clean water and medical supplies.

The government insists it has sent food and medicines, and accuses the rebels of holding the civilians as human shields.

It is not possible to verify the claims because the government has barred independent journalists from the war zone, arguing that it is too dangerous for them to work.

On Sunday Sri Lankan leaders were pressed by U.N. officials to let aid into the northeastern war zone.

Holmes held meetings Sunday with senior officials in Colombo and was "underscoring the urgent need for humanitarian access by the U.N. to the combat zone," U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said.

Aid workers have been barred from the region since fighting escalated in September.

Holmes, who arrived late Saturday, had previously called on the government to suspend its offensive to allow the estimated 50,000 trapped civilians to escape.

Holmes was to head Monday to the northern region of Vavuniya to inspect displacement camps and hospitals that have been overwhelmed by the more than 100,000 civilians who fled the war zone over the past week.

Despite growing international criticism of the offensive against the Tamil rebels, it is wildly popular with many in the Sinhalese majority, and the ruling party has used it to cement its power in a succession of provincial elections.

On Sunday, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's coalition was declared the overwhelming winner in the latest poll, sweeping nearly two-thirds of the vote in the Western Province. The coalition even won in the capital, Colombo, long a stronghold of the opposition United National Party, which advocated talks with the rebels.

The governing coalition now controls all eight of the country's provincial councils.

"The electorate ... clearly responded to the call of the president for a united Sri Lanka," Media Minister Anura Yapa said. "The president believed in himself in wiping out terrorism, and the people also believed in him."

In a sign, the rebels are feeling the pressure of the army's months-long offensive. Twenty-three insurgents surrendered on Sunday.

Dressed as civilians, they turned themselves over to the advancing troops, said Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara, the military spokesman.

Last week, two prominent rebels - the group's former media spokesman, Velayutham Dayanithi (whose nom de guerre is Daya Master) and an interpreter for group's political wing, known only as George - surrendered.

The rebels, listed as a terrorist group by many Western nations, have been fighting since 1983 for an ethnic Tamil state in the north and east after decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.