COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The army breached one of the last Tamil Tiger rebel fortifications yesterday and freed thousands of trapped civilians, some fleeing through the neck-high water of a lagoon while bleeding or carrying wounded relatives.
The government warned the rebels they had 24 hours to surrender or face a final assault to end a crumbling 25-year insurgency that sought to create a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils on this South Asian island.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa went on television to say that soldiers helped more than 35,000 civilians leave the battle zone in what he called the "largest-ever hostage rescue mission in history."
The Red Cross said its workers had tended to 4,000 people who crossed the front lines yesterday. Spokeswoman Sarasi Wijeratne said the organization was not in a position to "confirm or deny" the large number being quoted.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the civilians' escape but remained deeply concerned about thousands still trapped and "the potential for large-scale casualties," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood called the humanitarian situation "dire" and asked both sides to "cease this violent activity."
The United Nations estimated 100,000 civilians were trapped in the zone where the rebels have been pinned down, an area that measures less than 8 square miles. U.N. officials say 4,500 noncombatants have been killed in the last three months amid fierce fighting during a government offensive that has driven the rebels from their strongholds.
The United Nations and others have called for a negotiated truce to allow civilians to leave.
But the government has rejected that, saying it is on the verge of crushing the rebels after an insurgency that caused 70,000 deaths since it began in 1983, fed by Tamil anger over decades of marginalization by the island's ethnic Sinhalese majority.
The military said the vast majority of those who fled yesterday - more than 25,000 - headed to an army-controlled area where they were being screened.
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