MULLAITTIVU, Sri Lanka - The rebel-patrolled streets of Mullaittivu were empty Tuesday except for stray dogs, abandoned cows and a few government soldiers.
The Tamil Tigers deserted the last major town under their control as Sri Lankan troops swept into the area pushing the insurgents and thousands of residents into the nearby jungle and villages -- the only remnants of the separatists' once substantial shadow state.
But even with the rebels on the brink of defeat in the 25-year-old civil war, fighting still rages. Health officials said dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded in recent fighting and hundreds of thousands of displaced residents are at risk.
Independent accounts of the fighting are not available because the government does not allow most journalists near the area.
But, in a rare trip into the largely sealed war zone, the military on Tuesday escorted a group of journalists, including an Associated Press reporter, into Mullaittivu, showing off the latest prize in its fight to crush the rebels.
Mullaittivu, once a bustling town of 37,000 deep inside the rebels' heartland, was mostly silent except for the chirping of birds and the distant thunder of artillery and heavy machine gunfire.
The Bank of Ceylon was stripped of furniture and desolate, except for a few wires hanging from the ceiling. A nearby preschool was abandoned as well.
Some power lines were down, the windows of a government building were shattered and several buildings had all their ceiling tiles removed, but the town showed more lingering damage from the 2004 tsunami than from the recent fighting.
The Red Cross appealed to both sides Tuesday to allow what they estimated at 250,000 people trapped in the northern war zone to flee to safety.
"People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded," said Jacques de Maio, the International Committee of the Red Cross' head of operations for South Asia.
"It's high time to take decisive action and stop further bloodshed," he said, warning there could be "countless victims" if nothing is done.
The government has called on civilians to gather in a small "safe zone" on the edge of rebel territory, but a health official said Tuesday at least 300 civilians were wounded and scores feared killed by army artillery shells fired into the zone.
The military denied firing into the area.
The rebels, who have called for a separate state for ethnic Tamils, ran their de facto country as a virtual dictatorship that stretched across a wide swath of the north. Signs of their rule dotted the town.
A building, modeled on a Hindu temple, was apparently their local headquarters. Where the altar would be, the wall was emblazoned with the rebels' insignia, a roaring tiger.
In a building that appeared to be a rebel office, only an assortment of calendars showing rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran remained on the walls. All the furniture and even the light bulbs had been removed.
Deep ditches and landmines
Troops recounted how they fought for more than a year before breaking into the town from the south on Sunday.
Brig. Nandana Udawatte, the local commander, said the rebels had spent years digging fortifications and burying land mines before a 2002 cease-fire broke down in new fighting three years ago.
The rebels dug at least four sets of deep ditches backed by earthen walls -- one about 3 miles (5 kilometers) long. In front of the fortifications, the rebels had cut down trees and torched the foliage so the advancing troops would have no place to take shelter, he said.
But once government troops took the last berm outside the town, there was little resistance, he said.
"It was a short battle because we managed to outflank them," he said.
The fighting continued to the west on Tuesday, and one health official said at least 300 victims of the shelling were brought to Puthukudiyiruppu hospital, 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Mullaittivu.
Many relatives were burying their dead or abandoning them as they fled the attacks, making an accurate count impossible, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the government.
U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said his staff had seen "dozens of people killed and wounded" in the safe zone over the past few days, including 10 civilians killed Monday. He said he did not know who was responsible for firing in the area.
But the health official said the shelling appeared to come from the government-held area.
Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara denied that soldiers fired into the safe zone. He said rebels were dressing in street clothes so they would be mistaken for civilians if killed. Also, he said, that some civilians were forced to build fortifications by the insurgents and might be getting hit by crossfire.
Neighboring India, which has expressed concerns at the humanitarian situation here, sent External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to Sri Lanka on Tuesday night for talks with top officials.
