COLOMBO, Jan 13: Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers are now confined to a small area 30 km long and 20 km wide in the northeastern part of the country, President Mahinda Rajapaksa told journalists here on Monday.

The president said that the Tigers were using 100,000 Tamil civilians as human shield. Civilians had to pay Rs100,000 to the LTTE to leave for government-held areas.

When some journalists pointed out that so far only 1,168 people had fled the LTTE-held areas and that it was possible that they did not want to come out, the president said “it is unthinkable that any civilian would want to stay in a war-zone”.

President Rajapakse said the government was being blamed unfairly for the assassination of The Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and the burning of the studios of Maharaja TV. “Will a government which is at the height of its popularity ever do anything to make itself unpopular?”