By Simon Gardner

COLOMBO, Sept 24 (Reuters). Thousands of Muslims are fleeing their homes in embattled northeast Sri Lanka for the second time in as many months but thousands more are stranded, aid workers said on Sunday, after a suspected rebel front vowed to recapture the newly resettled area.

Families who had fled the northeastern town of Mutur as it was ravaged by fighting between the military and Tamil Tigers in August only returned from tent cities and refugee camps a fortnight ago after the army drove the Tamil Tigers out.

Now the military is blocking many resettled civilians from leaving again.

Around 1,500 families left Mutur for nearby Kinniya on Saturday and more than 1,000 families were stranded at a jetty on Sunday after the government suspended ferry service to the northeastern port of Trincomalee, one local aid worker told Reuters by telephone from the area.

"The military and the government are not allowing them to move", he added. "They have stopped the ferry and also by the land route they are stopping them and don't allow them to go on".

The attempted exodus comes after a previously unknown suspected rebel front called Tamileela Thayaga Meedpu Padai distributed leaflets in the town warning residents to leave immediately.

"The final preparations have begun to recapture ... Mutur", the leaflet said. "Do not remain in Mutur... you will only face destruction".

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were not immediately available for comment, but demand that the government must give back the nearby town of Sampur, which the army had captured. The town sits on the southern lip of the strategic harbour of Trincomalee.

Tens of thousands of people displaced by fierce fighting in and around Mutur had spent weeks camped out in emergency shelters in schools in the eastern town of Kantale, but government officials said they were under pressure to return life to normal for the town's regular habitants.

"The security forces are giving protection to the civilians in Mutur, so there is no need for them to go because of this LTTE threat", said a military spokesman.

"They are telling people not to leave, because security is provided by the security forces", he added.

The Tigers and the government have both told peace broker Norway they are prepared to meet for talks after a five-month deadlock to end a new chapter of civil war that has killed hundreds of civilians, troops and rebels since late July.

However, analysts and diplomats are sceptical the talks will actually happen, and fear the fighting will erupt again unless the two sides address the core issues of human rights abuses by both sides and the rebels' central demand for a separate homeland for minority Tamils in the north and east.

Fighting flared in the eastern district of Batticaloa early on Sunday, when the army and Tigers exchanged artillery and mortar fire. The military said it badly damaged two rebel camps, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

In the besieged northern Jaffna peninsula, cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka by rebel territory, the government sent families sheltering in schools back to their homes on the coast so that classes can resume on Monday. Some were frightened, others resigned.

Aid officials say both sides are focusing too closely on playing to their respective political galleries, and that the civilians sandwiched in the middle continue to pay the price for a civil war that has killed more than 65,000 people since 1983.

"All the camps in Kantale are empty. The people were told to go back, and that was not good because it was too early in my opinion", said one doctor, asking not to be identified.

"Now you see the result. All the tents have been removed, all the toilets are gone. Everything is clean. And now we start all over again".

Reuters AlertNet

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