By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The Tamil Tigers said Thursday they would never surrender to the advancing Sri Lankan forces and appealed to the international community to work harder for a cease-fire in the country's bloody civil war.
Sri Lanka has refused growing diplomatic pressure to stop its offensive against the rebel group's last stronghold in the northeast to safeguard the estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in the area.
"If any country really cares about these people, I ask that country to go beyond its 'diplomatic boundaries' for the sake of saving human lives and make Sri Lanka stop this genocidal war," rebel political chief Balasingam Nadesan told The Associated Press in an e-mail interview from the war zone.
Nadesan's comments came a day after the British and French foreign ministers traveled to Sri Lanka to push for a humanitarian truce and access for aid workers to the war zone.