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Lankan troops seize rebel bomb factory

28 Tigers killed in fighting

AFP, AP, Colombo
Sri Lankan troops killed 28 Tamil rebels and seized a cache of weapons and ammunition in their latest push for victory in the island's drawn-out ethnic conflict, the government said yesterday.
Security forces captured nine mortar tubes from a fortified camp at Kuppilankulam on Wednesday, the defence ministry said in a statement, adding 28 Tamil Tiger guerrillas had been killed in fighting in the area.
Also seized were a workshop for making hand grenades and roadside bombs, and several vehicles including an armour-plated van used by Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. the ministry said.
Soldiers took control Thursday of a bombmaking facility in the village of Sugandirpuram, where the rebels transformed 81mm mortar shells into roadside bombs, military’ spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said.
Also Thursday, the Red Cross sent a ferry on a second trip into the war zone to evacuate wounded civilians trapped in a coastal school being used as a makeshift hospital. The fern-brought 240 patients to the town of Trincomalee inside government-controlled territory Tuesday.
Military- officials have speculated that Prabhakaran may have slipped out of thecountry by boat as his fighters have been driven bat kinto a small patch of jungle.
The government has said it would soon crush the rebels and end the decades-long armed campaign for an inde-pcndentTamil homeland.
Concern has mounted for thousands of non-combatants trapped in the war zone, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said that hundreds of civilians have been killed in crossfire this year.
The ICRC said Thursday it planned to evacuate 160 patients from a makeshift hospital where artillery shelling killed 16 people earlier in the week.
Spokeswoman Sarasi Wijeratne said the patients would be taken by ferry to the eastern port of Trincomalec for treatment.
The Red Cross carried out a similar sea evacuation of 240 patients on Tuesday. saying the group had been stranded at the makeshift hospital deep
inside rebel territory for more than a week
The aid organisation said 16 patients died when shells hit the facility on,Monday, but it did not say who was responsible for the attack in an area where government troops and Tamil rebels are locked in fierce combat.
Aid groups estimate about 200,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone as fighting rages around them.
Sri Lanka's military denied it was responsible and said the Tigers may have been to blame.
Claims by either side cannot be verified as human rights groups, diplomats and independent journalists are not allowed to report freely from the conflict zone.
The government, which accuses the Tigers of holding thousands of civilians as "human shields," onThursday declared a new "safe zone" where it said non-combatants should gather after fleeing the rebels.