COLOMBO (AFP) — Sri Lanka staged mass funerals for bomb blast victims after independence day festivities were marred by a string of attacks blamed on Tamil Tiger rebels.
Schools in Colombo were shut as a Buddhist service was held for seven students and their baseball coach killed in a suicide bombing at a train terminal here on Sunday on the eve of Freedom Day.
After funeral rites, the coffins were taken to the victims' homes for burial.
In the northeastern Weli Oya region, a funeral was held for three people killed on Freedom Day in a bomb attack on a civilian bus that left 14 people dead and 15 injured.
Five people killed on Saturday in a bus bomb attack were buried in a mass grave in Kandy district on Monday.
President Mahinda Rajapakse insists security forces are winning the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and that the guerrillas have been confined to the northern region of the palm-fringed tropical island.
But there has been an explosion of violence blamed on the rebels in recent weeks, with a series of bloody attacks.
Villagers have been hacked to death inside government-controlled territory, and another roadside bomb attack killed a soldier in the south on Monday.
London-based Amnesty International said Tuesday it was alarmed over the worsening security situation as it could lead to a "further spiralling of civilian casualties."
"Both the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE are failing to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and are killing civilians on an increasingly regular basis," the rights group said.
"With no perpetrators brought to justice, a climate of impunity is becoming entrenched: unless these patterns are reversed the future appears bleak," warned Tim Parritt, deputy programme director for the Asia-Pacific region.
The government has delayed by three days a military hardware and state enterprise exhibition after the attacks, which came as Sri Lanka celebrated 60 years of independence from Britain.
Sri Lanka meanwhile complained to neighbouring India over the disappearance of seven of its sailors following a sea battle with suspected rebels on Monday near the common maritime border.
It was not known whether the boat had sunk or the sailors had been taken prisoner.
Colombo alleged that 400 to 500 Indian trawlers were poaching in Sri Lankan waters and that Tiger operatives had taken cover among them to launch an attack on Sri Lankan naval patrols.
The Sri Lankan patrols could not return fire for fear of injuring the Indian fishermen, Colombo said.
The Tiger naval attack followed ground confrontations between troops and rebels in the same area, in which at least five guerrillas were killed and four wounded, the defence ministry said.
War planes bombed a suspected Tamil Tiger office on Tuesday but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, the ministry said.
In an independence day address to the nation on Monday, Rajapakse said Colombo was winning its war with the Tigers, saying "terrorism is receiving an unprecedented defeat."
The Sri Lankan government last month officially pulled out of a defunct truce with the rebels, who have fought for more than three decades for an independent ethnic homeland in the Sinhalese-majority island.
According to the defence ministry, the rebels have lost at least 913 fighters since the beginning of the year, compared with just 37 government soldiers killed.
Scores of civilians have also died during the same period, according to both sides. No independent verification of the tolls is possible as the media and human rights groups are barred from the embattled regions.
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