ban ki moon

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon toured Sri Lanka's biggest refugee camp Saturday and said the country did not have the resources to deal with the tens of thousands who fled fighting with Tamil Tiger rebels.

Ban told Rajapaksa the U.N. and other international humanitarian agencies needed immediate and unimpeded access to camps that are housing 290,000 people who escaped rebel-held areas as a military onslaught bore down on the separatists.

Sri Lanka's conflict zone, off limits to aid workers and journalists as civilians were being killed, will be visited by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the accompanying Press on May 23, it was announced on Tuesday. Speaking in Geneva, Mr. Ban told reporters that “I expect that I will be able to visit the conflict zone, which the Sri Lankan Government officials told me had been liberated. I would like to have my first hand, on the spot, assessment of the situation myself. I am going to discuss this matter with President Rajapaksa.”