Colombo:
Reports of chaos and suffering in the northern war zone of Sri Lanka have increased in recent days as the Sri Lankan military pushed forward with its offensive to destroy the separatist insurgency and end the Indian Ocean island nation's bloody quarter-century civil war.
Aid workers have been barred from the region since fighting escalated last year (2008).
In Colombo, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) have set up makeshift camps for thousands fleeing the fighting. Meanwhile, on the streets of the capital security was tight.
More than 100-thousand 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.
The UN has said another 50,000 civilians remain trapped in the war zone. But according to rebels the number of trapped civilians is three times that estimate. The Tamil Tigers also said in their statement that food stocks in the region had dwindled.
The rebels called on the UN and the international community to ensure that food supplies are swiftly sent to the area.
Meanwhile, the United Nations' top humanitarian official arrived in the country on Saturday to seek access to some 50,000 civilians trapped in the country's war zone, while the Tamil Tiger rebels are warning of imminent starvation among non-combatants.
United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who begins a three-day mission to the island on Sunday, said he hoped to persuade the Sri Lankan government to suspend its assault and allow a humanitarian team into the conflict zone.
The UN has said nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed in the fighting over the past three months.
The government insists that it has sent food and medicines to the area and accuses the rebels of holding the civilians as human shields to protect the reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran from the advancing troops.
It is not possible to verify the claims because the government has barred aid workers and independent journalists from the war zone, arguing that it is too dangerous for them to work.
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 marginalisation by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.
After more than three years of intense fighting, the military stands on the verge of crushing the group.