The UN Security Council's second session in a month on the conflict in Sri Lanka was a "friendly censure" of the government, according to Jorge Urbina, the Ambassador of Costa Rica, a member of the Council.
Following a closed door session at which Sri Lanka's Mission to the UN showed pictures of the conflict zone, U.S. Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo said that Sri Lanka has been shelling areas with civilians, near to hospitals, reported Inner City Press.
She said that the camps for internally displaced people, which she called interment camps, would only be funded by the UN for three months, the agency reported.
Top UN Humanitarian John Holmes, on the other hand, said he "wouldn't like to put a time" frame on how long the UN would fund these camps, from which IDPs cannot leave or receive visits, even from family members.
Likewise, he declined again to confirm his own agency's figures of 2,683 civilians killed from January 20 to March 7, a number that only came out because the document was leaked to Inner City Press.
Meanwhile, the UN, backed by the US and Britain, has urged the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers to back a "humanitarian pause" in fighting.
A senior UN official said the civilian population trapped in the conflict zone in the north was not being allowed out.
Amnesty International said on Friday that thousands of civilians were increasingly at risk in the conflict. Rights and aid groups have continued to criticise both the government and the Liberation Tigers over civilian casualties.
Amnesty International said that tens of thousands of people trapped in government-designated "safe zones" in the north-east were becoming more exposed because of the escalation in fighting.
Amnesty also called for an immediate truce to allow aid to reach trapped civilians and ensure safe passage for all those who wished to leave.
It called on the UN and international donors to put pressure on Sri Lanka to ensure unimpeded humanitarian access to camps for displaced people.
"The deliberate firing on civilians by either side constitutes a war crime," said Sam Zarifi, director of the Asia Pacific region at Amnesty International.
"We cannot stress enough the importance of an immediate pause to allow the displaced to leave before thousands more are killed."
Holmes' equivocation, combined with UN Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne's even more pronounced placating of the government - which has led senior UN officials in New York to say Buhle has been "captured" - have led the Sri Lankan government to claim that no one in the UN has criticized their conduct in the conflict, neither from the UN Secretariat nor from UN member states, Inner City Press reported.
Inner City Press asked Sri Lanka's representative after the meeting to explain his Foreign Minister's claims. He said he would have to look into them.
Asked when the newspaper editor locked up during the conflict would be put on trial or released, he said "I am not an astrologer."
He said the Army is closer than one kilometer from the zone, but is holding back.
A senior UN official on March 25, the day before the Council meeting, said that the UN internally is increasingly worried of a "nightmare scenario" in which the government makes a final push, tens of thousands of civilians end up dead and "everyone blames the UN."
U.S. Ambassador DiCarlo said the number of civilians trapped between the LTTE and the government number from 150,000 to 190,000. The UN's Holmes added the Sri Lankan government's figure, 70,000, Inner City Press said.
