COLOMBO: Thousands have fled their homes in Sri Lanka’s northeast after rioting last week which a pro-rebel newspaper said was reminiscent of ethnic violence that launched the island into civil war more than 20 years ago. Some 3,000 are living in camps near the port city of Trincomalee, home to a mix of majority Sinhalese, ethnic minority Tamils and Muslims, after the town erupted into bloody riots that followed a suspected Tamil Tiger bomb last week. "In the last two or three days NGOs have begun providing food for them," Trincomalee Government Agent K G Leelananda told Reuters.

The riots were part of a wave of escalating violence that has pushed a 2002 truce between the government and Tamil Tiger rebels, fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east, to the breaking point.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have also said they would not attend a round of talks in Geneva planned for next week, putting the peace process further in question. The Lodon-based Tamil Guardian, seen as close to the rebels, said Sinhalese targeted Tamils in the riots while the government stood by, adding there could be no progress on peace because of what it called "enduring racism".

"Last week’s violence in Trincomalee was almost a carbon copy of the dynamics of ‘Black July’, bitter memories of which were instantly revived amongst Tamils," the newspaper, which publishes weekly, said in an editorial on Wednesday. Black July refers to July 1983, when the capital Colombo was torn apart by race riots seen as starting the full-scale civil war that has killed more than 64,000. Those riots followed a Tiger ambush on soldiers in the north. The violence in Trincomalee was "systemic and organised", the newspaper charged, criticising President Mahinda Rajapakse for not offering an apology or assurances of protection. The area has been under intermittent curfew since the riots.

Local police were encouraging those who fled Trincomalee to return home and residents had pledged to do so within the next few days, government agent Leelananda said. But the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, seen as the aid arm of the Tigers, said the climate of fear in the east- traditionally a flashpoint because of its ethnic mix-made it unlikely they would move home soon. "Until people feel safe they won’t go back," said spokesman Arjunan Ethirveerasingam.

He said the organisation estimated it had helped 800 families, or about 4,000 people, who fled both into government-controlled and rebel-held areas.

Meanwhile, Ten more people have been killed in Sri Lanka, police and Tamil Tiger rebels said on Wednesday, as two Claymore mine blasts wounded four people.

A foreign national, believed to be a Southeast Asian, was among those wounded on Wednesday, police said adding that his vehicle was hit by a Claymore mine in the northern district of Vavuniya.

The man and his local driver were taken to the main hospital in the area 265 kilometres north of Colombo, police said. They said two sailors were also wounded when their water-tanker was ambushed with a Claymore mine in the adjoining district of Mannar. The blasts came as police found the bodies of five men killed overnight near a military camp in Puttur in the Jaffna peninsula where a mine attack wounded two soldiers on Monday, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the killings, but the pro-Tamil rebel Tamilnet website said it was the work of government forces.

Tamilnet said the men had been taken to an army camp in the area on Tuesday night and later shot dead.

"The five civilians were... ordered to run through the Tharavai area, an open terrain near the camp, shot and killed by the Sri Lanka army men," Tamilnet said.

There was no immediate word from the military about the allegations. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam earlier on Wednesday accused troops and paramilitary groups of killing five Tamil civilians in separate incidents on Monday.

The rebels in a statement said fear was widespread in the districts of Batticaloa and Jaffna as Tamil civilians were the target of "state violence."

"In almost all of the incidents, state security and military forces were in close proximity of the killings, and did not take any action." The killings came as Norway’s special peace envoy to Sri Lanka Jon Hanssen-Bauer arrived in the island in a bid to save the faltering peace process.