Sri Lanka said Sunday it would not allow aid workers complete access to civilians who remain held in camps after the defeat of the Tamil Tigers until rebels hiding among the refugees had been weeded out.United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, on a visit to one camp housing 200,000 Tamils, had called for his staff to be given "unhindered access" to those displaced in the decades-long war that ended a week ago.
Ban, who toured the Menik Farm facility on Saturday, described the conditions as overcrowded and the detained civilians as "badly in need of food, water and sanitation."
The government responded to his appeal for aid agencies to be permitted to help by saying that "as conditions improved, especially with regard to security, there would be no objections to such assistance."
President Mahinda Rajapakse's statement warned of "the likely presence of Tamil Tiger infiltrators among the large numbers who had come to the government areas."
The government describes the camps as "welfare villages" and says it wants to resettle all displaced civilians as soon as possible, but Tamil activists say they are "concentration camps" with inmates penned in behind barbed wire.
During his visit, Ban urged Rajapakse to probe alleged human rights violations committed during the defeat of the Tamil separatists, a joint statement on Sunday said.
The government responded warily to Ban's request, promising only to "take measures to address those grievances."
Between 80,000 to 100,000 people died in years of fighting between government troops and Tamil separatists, who were battling for an independent homeland on the Sinhalese majority island.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has said both the military and the Tigers may have been guilty of war crimes, and campaign groups have condemned the army for indiscriminate shelling of civilians.
Rajapakse has robustly rejected all allegations of war crimes since his troops' victory, which came after he ignored the UN's repeated calls for a ceasefire.
About 300,000 Tamils abandoned their homes and waded through swamps and jungle to flee the violence, only to be herded into the spartan state-run camps.
"I'm very moved after what I have seen. I've seen so many wounded," the secretary general said after inspecting the mass of makeshift corrugated iron shacks and tents.
The government was "doing its utmost best" but it lacked the necessary resources, Ban later told reporters.
"With this in mind, the UN can help," he said. "The UN must be given immediate unhindered access to the camps, the overcrowding must end and there should be special programmes for pregnant mothers and children."
Aid agencies have complained that even the limited access they had to the detained Tamils had been cut off in recent days.
The Red Cross said on Thursday the government had stopped it from delivering desperately needed food to the Menik Farm camp, where it said people were still arriving after enduring "unimaginable hardship."
The UN chief flew by helicopter over the battlefields in the northeast of Sri Lanka on Saturday, observing a desolate landscape of craters, burnt-out vehicles and charred buildings.
Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers' founder and leader who was killed in the last days of fighting, was cremated near where he died, army chief Sarath Fonseka said on Sunday.
"We cremated the body in the same area and threw the ashes into the ocean," Fonseka told the Sunday Rivira newspaper.
"Even before Prabhakaran was killed, I knew we had won the war but I was overjoyed when I had confirmation of his death."
The government broadcast footage of Prabhakaran's body on Tuesday after a pro-rebel website said he was still alive.
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