Satellite Evidence of Human Rights Violations (2): Sri Lanka

Via Obsidian Wings:

The fighting [between the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil rebels in the North] has recently focused on a small area on a little spit of land surrounded on three sides by water. The people who lived there were essentially trapped, and the Tamil Tigers were said to be using them as human shields. There were, reportedly, 50,000 of them as of May 15. Aid has not been able to get through for some days. Here are some photos from a report commissioned by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (via the BBC) that give some sense of the recent damage to this area:

satellite evidence of human rights violations in Sri Lanka, click to enlarge

Bear in mind that those photos are of the same area, and that they were taken four days apart. That’s how long it took for most of those houses — which had been set up for displaced persons — to be obliterated by government shelling.