A pro-rebel Web site reported that Sri Lankan jets on Monday bombed a children’s home in the country’s rebel-held northeast, killing 43 schoolgirls who were there taking a first aid course.

An additional 60 girls were wounded in the morning air raid on the home in the Mullaitivu district, which lies deep inside territory controlled by the Tamil Tigers, the TamilNet Web site reported, citing rebel officials. ~The Houston Chronicle

AT least 15 people were killed and many more wounded when shells hit a church where residents had sought shelter near Sri Lanka’s Jaffna peninsula, the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website said today. ~The Australian

It is unfortunate that just as the war in Lebanon is supposed to be winding down, the war in Sri Lanka is resuming after several years of a tenuous cease-fire.  These incidents are deplorable if true (and I stress that they have not yet been verified), and indeed would perhaps be even more deplorable than what happened at Qana.  The bombing and slaughter at Qana were abominable, but here the Sri Lankan government seems to have had even less reason to bomb this location and none at all to shell a church.  The latter, if true, is clearly a war crime. 

If these reports are verified, I would hope that Sri Lanka meets with the same international indignation over this bombing and shelling as Israel did with Qana.  Even though this is a conflict internal to Sri Lanka, and it is Sri Lanka’s legitimate business to suppress terrorist separatists, that does not free it from its obligations to the civilian population–its own citizens–nor does it excuse crimes like the ones that have apparently taken place.