For weeks the nothern Jaffna peninsula has been cut off from the rest of the island. Sri Lanka’s government is refusing to open the A9 highway which connects Jaffna to the south by road. Instead, the government is insisting Jaffna should be resupplied by sea.
But the Tamil Tigers suspect the government wants to replenish, under the guise of delivering humanitarian supplies to civilians, ammunition and other military material expended by the 40,000 strong Sri Lankan military garrison there – whilst denying the LTTE controlled areas food and medicine.
A flare-up in fighting between government forces and Tamil Tigers in August cut the peninsula. An SLA offensive was thwarted by an LTTE counter offensive. Hundred died in a week of fighting.
There are concerns that Jaffna's residents -- at least 300,000 people, who're almost all Tamils -- will run out of food and medicine. Ships cannot, in any case, provide the supplies that were delivered by up to 100 lorries a day before the fighting.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, the international body set up to monitor the much-abused 2002 ceasefire, has warned of a possible humanitarian crisis.
And while many people in Jaffna want to get out, there are also people desperately trying to get back.
People who were out of town when the war flared up last month and have been unable to return. They're now among the estimated 200,000 people displaced by the renewed fighting in the island's northeast.
Several thousand of them are to be found in the government-controlled town of Vavuniya, 50 miles south of Jaffna. Some are now living in squalid refugee camps outside town.
Last week, the head of the LTTE’s Political Wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that the Tigers would cooperate fully in the transportation of humanitarian supplies through demarcated land routes.
However, the Sri Lankan government, engaged in military aggression against the LTTE, was determined not to reopen the supply routes, he said.
The closure of A9 is "not a mere violation of the Ceasefire Agreement, but an offence against humanity, denying basic supplies to hundreds of thousands of people," Mr. Thamilchelvan said.
The International committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) escorted one ship carrying foreign passport holders off the peninsula. That was with the approval of both sides.
Since then, there is suspicion the military is planning to using ICRC flagged vessels to move munitions. The LTTE says land-supply routes enable the verification of humanitarian materials.
The LTTE has given “its pledge to stop all retaliatory fire during the land passage of, humanitarian supply convoys, ambulances, and employees of non-governmental organizations.”
However it refused to guarantee safety for transport by sea as the ceasefire agreement did not have specific articles about demarcation lines in sea and as such it was not possible for the LTTE to provide protection to ICRC sponsored ships using these waters.
ICRC communications coordinator Davide Vignatti said the agency was standing by its policy which needs the agreement of both parties to carry out humanitarian operations in conflict affected areas.
“We are ready to help evacuate civilians from Jaffna at any time, however, we can only do that with the full agreement of both parties. As a neutral organisation we require the agreement of both parties and not just one,” Mr. Davide said in response to government criticism.
Government defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella expressed displeasure at the ICRC refusal.
The ICRC’s delegate-general for Asia and the Pacific, Reto Meier, has warned that Jaffna is "choking", having been cut off, with Vanni, from the rest of the country for more than three weeks.
"The flow of goods and people across the lines separating government-controlled from LTTE-held territory has come to a virtual standstill in the north owing to restrictions imposed by both sides," an ICRC statement quoted him as saying.
On Saturday, the Northern Regional Transport Board (NRTB) bus services operating from Kondavil, Point Pedro and Karainagar Bus Depots in the Jaffna peninsula, ground to a halt from Saturday noon as the fuel stock in the depots ran out.
Meanwhile, electricity supply for the peninsula from the Chunakam Electricity Board has been cut down to a mere one hour per day as the fuel stock for the gas-fired generator station also had gone low.
And the fuel stocks that remained unused at the Kankesanthurai Government fuel storage centre has been completely appropriated by the Sri Lanka military in Jaffna penisula for its exclusive use.