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Sri Lanka's War Casualties Total 4000 in 2000
While Sri Lanka's ethnic war continues and seven more separatist Tamil Tiger rebels were reported dead on Thursday in a commando-style troop operation, the military revealed that nearly 4,000 from both sides were killed in the year 2000, The Island newspaper reported on Friday.
Military spokesman Sanath Karunaratne was quoted as saying on Thursday that 2,433 Tiger rebels and 1,464 government soldiers including police and paramilitary personnel had been killed last year.
The figure of the dead estimated for the entire 17 year period of the ethnic war has now reached 64,000.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels said in November that they had lost 16,333 combatants since they launched the war for a separate state for minority Tamils in the country in 1983.
The year 2000 saw some of the fiercest fighting in the battle fields. Determined to recapture the Jaffna peninsular in the north of the country by the end of last year the Tiger rebels launched a series of offensives from March to May and inflicted several reversals on government forces.
However, after the purchase of modern military equipment the army managed to turn tables and forced back the LTTE rebels in a series of offensives which began last September.
The LTTE rebels have declared a one-month unilateral ceasefire till January 24 in lieu of impending peace talks initiated by Norwegian mediation but the government has rejected the ceasefire until there are positive results from the talks.
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