U.N. blasts Sri Lanka weekend attack as 'bloodbath'

By Ranga Sirilal

COLOMBO (Reuters) -- The United Nations said a weekend attack in Sri Lanka that killed hundreds was the bloodbath it had feared, while the Tamil Tigers and government traded blame ahead of U.N. Security Council talks over the war.

In the latest reported assault on civilians trapped in the war zone, at least hundreds of people were reported killed on Sunday in an artillery barrage that struck the less than 5 square km the separatist rebels control.

"We've been consistently warning against a bloodbath, and the large-scale killing of civilians including more than 100 children this weekend appears to show that the bloodbath has become a reality," U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said.

The rebels blamed the government, which in turn said the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had fired on the people it has been holding hostage for months in a last-minute move to secure international pressure for a truce to stave off defeat.

Getting a clear picture of events in the war zone is next to impossible, as it is generally closed to outsiders and those within it are not fully independent of pressure that is often applied at gunpoint.

Diplomats and officials said the U.N. Security Council was due to have another informal meeting over Sri Lanka on Monday in New York with the foreign ministers of Britain and France, who had a stormy visit to Sri Lanka at the end of April, both due to attend.

The council is split over whether to elevate discussion over Sri Lanka's war to a formal level where it could act. The United States and Britain are pushing to get a ceasefire, while Russia and China have opposed that.

Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said the LTTE timed the attack to come just before the U.N. Security Council meeting, the daily newspaper The Island quoted him as saying.