Fears of final bloodbath as Sri Lanka pledges to annihilate Tamil rebels who laid down their weapons



Fears were growing last night that the 25-year civil war in Sri Lanka will end today in one final bloodbath.



The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat yesterday, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept through their remaining strongholds.

But Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa rejected the plea for a cease-fire, determined to wipe out the last pockets of rebel resistance.

Government soldiers of the 58th and 59th Division on a beach inside the 'No Fire Zone' where they have surrounded the Tamil Tiger rebels for the final battle i

A soldier looks at a destroyed Tamil Tiger boat on a beach in the Sri Lankan war zone, where rebels have laid down their guns ending the 26-year conflict

With about 2,000 beleaguered Tamil fighters surrounded on a strip of land of less than half a square mile, the impasse made a bloody end to the quarter century conflict almost inevitable.

The government has cut off any chance of a sea escape from the shrinking patch of jungle and sources say troops plan to ‘bomb the rebels into oblivion.’



The Tamils were reduced to desperate suicide attacks in an effort to repel a final assault by troops set on annihilating them.

There were also reports that as many as 300 Tamil fighters committed mass suicide, biting into the cyanide pills they carry around their necks in case of capture, after their appeal for clemency was rebuffed.

37,000 civilians are said to have left the war-torn strip of land in the past 24 hours

The Sri Lankan military walk across a beach in the 'No fire zone', as the Tamil rebels admit the war has reached its 'bitter end'

There were conflicting reports about reclusive Tamil leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran. One report suggested he killed himself after a massive explosion was heard inside a bunker being used as his headquarters, although this was being denied by his supporters.

Government officials claimed that thousands of civilians being used as human shields by the Tamils had been freed. At least 70 rebels were killed as they tried to escape posing as refugees.

Aid groups say that 72,000 civilians have fled during the past four days. They fear that as many as 7,000 may have been killed in the crossfire.

With the war in its final throes in the northeast of the country, Sri Lankans poured into the streets in a spontaneous celebration, dancing and setting off fireworks.

The president is planning a televised news conference in the capital, Colombo, on Tuesday morning to formally announce the end of Asia’ s longest modern conflict.

Sri Lankan soldiers standing next to an anti-aircraft gun they say they recovered from Tamil Tiger rebels in Putumattalan

Mahinda Rajapaksa surrounded by crowds of well-wishers on arrival from Jordan today. The Sri Lankan Prime Minister declared victory in the civil war yesterday

Founded on a culture of suicide before surrender, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam issued a statement yesterday accepting: ‘This battle has reached its bitter end.



‘We remain with one last choice – to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns.’

After the government rejected peace talks, rebel spokesman Selvarajah Pathmanathan said they were offering to lay down their arms to protect 25,000 injured Tamils in the area.

The remains of a burnt-out tractor used by the Tamil Tigers in their last-stand battle with the Sri Lankan army

Military equipment captured from the Tamil Tigers in fighting is put on display

He said 3,000 civilians had been killed in the last 24 hours.

‘Our people are dying. Every hour more than a hundred are dying,’ he told Channel 4 News. He claimed that although the Tamils wanted a ceasefire, they were not surrendering.

Getting an independent picture of events is difficult because the media and aid workers have been banned from the war zone by the Sri Lankan authorities.

Sri Lankans wave the national flag in Colombo following Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's declaration of victory in the 26-year war against Tamil rebels

But defeat for the Tamils has been a foregone conclusion for months. In the past three years, government forces have captured nearly 6,000 square miles the Tigers had previously controlled as a quasi-state for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils.

Hundreds of suicide bombings and assassinations over the past two-and-a-half decades had turned the Tigers into one of the world’s most violent armed groups, designated as terrorists by more than 30 countries.

The cataclysmic end to the war came after the government rejected calls for a truce to protect civilians, and the Tigers refused to surrender and free 50,000 to 100,000 people the United Nations and others said they were holding as human shields.

The fighting between the Tamil rebels and the Sri Lankan army has been taking place in a tiny strip of northern coastland

Each side accuses the other of killing civilians, and diplomats say there is evidence both have done so. The UN rights chief said on Friday that she backed an inquiry into potential war crimes and humanitarian violations by both sides.

A wave of diplomatic pressure from Britain, the United States, France and the United Nations last week, including threats to delay a £1.2 billion International Monetary Fund loan, appeared to come too late to stop the final fight.