No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka

Sunday, February 23, 2014

No Fire Zone is the definitive story of the final awful months of the 26-year long Sri Lankan civil war told by the people who lived through it. A chilling expose of some of the worst war crimes and crimes against humanity of recent time.

No Fire Zone is the culmination of three years journalistic investigation which began with Channel 4 News’s exposure of atrocities committed by government forces at the end of the war.

The film also addresses the culpability of the Tamil Tigers, themselves responsible for committing war crimes and for preventing civilians from trying to escape the carnage. Since 2009 there has been no independent judicial investigation into what happened and the Government of Sri Lanka continues to say the video evidence of war crimes is faked. A UN Panel of Experts reported to Ban Ki Moon that as many as 40,000 civilians may have died during the first few months of 2009 – mostly as a result of government shelling. A more recent internal UN review concluded the figure could be higher - 70,000 or even more.

No Fire Zone also brings this story up to date. This is still a live story – the brutal repression and ethnic restructuring of the Tamil homelands in the north of Sri Lanka continues – journalists and government critics are still disappearing.