UN says Sri Lanka offices looted

The United Nations said Sunday its offices in the rebel-controlled north of Sri Lanka had been looted after aid workers were evacuated last week.

A statement from the UN said that it suspected the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were involved in the theft from buildings it had left on the orders of the Sri Lankan government.

The UN did not disclose what was stolen, but local media reported that the suspected rebels took large stocks of fuel and electricity generators.

UN and other international agencies pulled staff out of the tense area near the rebel political capital Kilinochchi after the government said it could not guarantee their safety.

Fighting has escalated around the rebel-held Wanni region, comprising Kilinochchi and Mullaittivu, as security forces fight to dismantle the Tigers' northern territory.

"The UN has drawn this to the attention of the LTTE and says that humanitarian assets and staff ought to be protected at all times in accordance with international humanitarian law," the statement said.

The Sri Lankan government last week ordered international aid agencies to evacuate, with officials saying Colombo did not want to be embroiled in a scandal if aid workers were killed.

The withdrawal of aid personnel prompted fears for the fate of 160,000 ethnic Tamil civilians displaced by the military onslaught.

Tens of thousands have died on both sides since the LTTE launched a military campaign in 1972 to carve out a homeland for minority Tamils in the island's north and east.

Colombo, which has poured a record 1.5 billion dollars into this year's war efforts, ejected the rebels from their eastern bastion in July 2007. Fighting is now concentrated on the north.