COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – The last remaining civilians trapped by the fighting in northern Sri Lanka poured out of the war zone Sunday, clearing the way for government forces to wipe out the remaining pockets of rebel resistance, the military said.
Troops killed at least 70 rebels trying to escape the war zone Sunday, the military said. However the Tamil Tigers' top commanders remained at large. The military said the rebel leadership was likely still in the war zone and planning a mass suicide.
Thousands of Sri Lankans poured into the streets Sunday morning, dancing and setting off celebratory fireworks, after President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared victory in the country's quarter-century civil war with the separatist rebels.
"We are celebrating a victory against terrorism," said Sujeewa Anthonis, a 32-year-old street hawker.
As the fighting raged on in recent days, concerns mounted for the fate of the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone amid heavy shelling and intense fighting.
But all 50,000 civilians fled the area over the past 72 hours, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Sunday. With journalists and aid workers barred from the war zone, it was not possible to verify the assertion.
Early Sunday, some insurgents tried to escape in six boats across a lagoon. But army troops thwarted the rebel attempt, killing a large number of rebels, said Nanayakkara.
So far, 70 bodies of rebel fighters have been recovered, he said.
The rebels, who once controlled a de facto state across much of the north, have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for minority Tamils after decades of marginalization by the Sinhalese majority. Responsible for hundreds of suicide attacks — including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi — the Tamil Tigers have been branded terrorists by the U.S., E.U. and India and shunned internationally.