SRI Lankan authorities have extended "unofficial" censorship to hospitals and funeral parlours as losses mount after a major battle against Tamil rebels, a media rights group said.
The Free Media Movement (FMM) said the authorities had prevented photographers taking pictures of military casualties brought to hospitals following heavy fighting in the northern peninsula of Jaffna on Wednesday.
Funeral undertakers also blocked photographers and reporters as soldiers provided tight security.
"It is highly likely that these measures have been taken after heavy losses faced by the Sri Lankan army earlier this week after fighting intensified in the North," the FMM said in a statement.
The group said it was urging the government as well as the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to respect the right to information.
"The FMM believes that the right of the public to know information and news relating to the ongoing war is severely undermined by the restrictions placed on journalists."
It said only foreign wire services and a few news websites operating from Colombo reported battle front casualties independent of government military press releases.
Heavy toll
At least 165 government soldiers were killed and 20 more went missing in a major battle against Tamil rebels this week, military sources told AFP.
The figures were far higher than official defence ministry casualties which gave 43 soldiers dead and 33 missing from Wednesday`s fighting in the north.
"Some of the senior officers have been told that the army lost 185, including 20 who are still listed as missing," said a military source who declined to be named.
"We are trying to establish the fate of the missing."
The LTTE yesterday returned the bodies of 28 soldiers they had captured.
The government also reported killing more than 100 rebels in the pre-dawn offensive along the Muhamalai front lines on the northern Jaffna peninsula.
However, the separatists, who have been fighting for a Tamil homeland since 1972, said they lost only 25 combatants.
Official defence ministry casualty tolls and LTTE figures can seldom be verified because the government prevents journalists from visiting war zones and territory held by the rebels.
Wednesday`s confrontation was the bloodiest in recent years and the biggest battle since the military withdrew from a Norwegian-arranged truce in January this year.
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