COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, May 9 (UPI) -- Eleven people died in fighting between guerilla factions in Sri Lanka Monday, while a Japanese peace mediator met President Mahinda Rajapakse in Colombo.
The Karuna Group, a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers, launched a pre-dawn attack against a Tamil camp in northeastern Trincomalee district, the Defense Ministry said. The ministry said it had no further details of the violence, but believed it was a retaliatory strike for an attack by the Tigers on the Karuna forces last month.
The government imposed a curfew in the northern Jaffna peninsula from midnight Sunday until late Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile Japanese envoy Yasushi Akashi, a former U.N. undersecretary-general, held discussions with the Sri Lankan president on ways of salvaging the endangered peace process.
Akashi was to meet Tuesday with political leaders of the Tamil Tigers in the north of the country, Xinhua reported.
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission that oversees the truce has said violence is out of control and cannot be halted while the Tigers refuse to join peace talks.
Tamil leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has refused to meet the Japanese delegation, leaving that task to his group's political wing.
