Witness History
Witness History
The final days of Sri Lanka's civil war
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May 15, 2019
11 minutes
Available for over a year
In May 2009 the Sri Lankan army finally crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending 25 years of bloody civil war. In the final weeks of the conflict, thousands of civilians were trapped alongside the rebels under heavy shelling as the government forces closed in. Journalists and aid workers were prevented from reaching the war zone. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from one Tamil woman trapped in the siege zone, and from the former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, Gordon Weiss, who watched on from the capital Colombo as the fighting came to an end.
Photo: Tamil civilians standing on the roadside after crossing to a government-controlled area 2kms from the front-line (Getty Images)