Word: zoning
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...During the last weeks of the war, the government consistently charged that the three doctors were providing inflated numbers and wrong information about civilian casualties by government fire within a narrow no-fire zone. On May 12, Varatharajah told the Associated Press that 49 patients were killed and 50 others were injured when shells hit the only functioning medical facility within the zone...
...when they appear in court," Samarasinghe said, indicating that the doctors were likely to retract accusations that government forces were responsible for the shelling. When AP reported the May 12 shelling incident, the government reiterated that government forces had already suspended the use of heavy weapons inside the combat zone three weeks earlier. "There was a lot of publicity that we launched an attack on a hospital. That publicity was given due to the three doctors," Samarasinghe said. "Now they are in the custody of the CID, under detention orders. Soon they will be produced in court. You will hear...
...There was uncertainty about the condition of the doctors after they crossed over, having remained within the combat zone as late as May 15, according to some reports. Amnesty International said the three had last been seen on the morning of May 15 near Omanthai, where the screening of civilians and others escaping the combat zone was taking place, about 50 miles (80 km) south of the fighting. One of the doctors, Varatharajah, was injured during the latter stages of the fighting...
...three doctors became the main source of information to the outside world from within the combat zone during the final days of Sri Lanka's decades-long civil war. Because the shrinking war zone was blocked, they were relied on heavily by journalists, relief agencies and others for updates. Many of them felt that the doctors were trustworthy sources: according to ICRC's Zanarelli, the three were from a group "with whom the ICRC had been working to evacuate nearly 14,000 patients and their careers between mid-February...
...government, however, has maintained that the information relayed by the doctors was inherently unreliable. After the May 12 incident, the health ministry said Varatharajah had not communicated with the ministry since late last 2008. "We have always maintained that any voice from the [former] no-fire zone cannot be an independent voice. When somebody was talking from the small area under the Tigers, it was not an independent voice. There was a pistol pointed at the head when they are talking to BCC, CNN or al-Jazeera," Samarasinghe said, with his index finger firmly pointed at his temple...