- The Guardian, Friday 22 May 2009
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, flew to Sri Lanka to discuss the plight of up to 300,000 Tamils displaced by the war.
His chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, who flew over the scene of the final battle on Thursday, described a devastated landscape in which the loosely-packed tents appeared to have been destroyed and there were large numbers of burning vehicles. Only a few soldiers could be seen moving around, he said. "We were not able to see any civilians. What was truly striking was almost the total absence of human habitation … it was almost eerie."
He said the issues surrounding an investigation into possible war crimes would be discussed by the UN Human Rights Council next week.
"As far as the UN is concerned, where there are grave and systematic violations of international humanitarian law, these are things which should be looked at by the international community, by the United Nations," he said.
He said the secretary general would press the Sri Lankan government over the detention of doctors who treated civilians inside the war zone but who have since been arrested, accused of giving out false casualty figures.
A UN official later said the Sri Lankan government would be urged to consider an amnesty to former LTTE members to speed up the peace process.
