A report released today by Amnesty International reveals that 639,400 people in Sri Lanka have been forced out of their homes by both the conflict and the 2004 tsunami combined.

“Waiting to go home: The plight of the internally displaced” also states that according to UN figures a total of 39,883 people have been displaced in the north and east of Sri Lanka during the past two months alone.

The study conducted by the Human rights group over the past year, says that these ‘internally displaced persons’ continue to be extremely vulnerable to violence and harassment by both the Tamil Tigers, and the Sri Lankan security forces and other armed groups.

Meanwhile the shadow war raging on in eastern Sri Lanka between competing rebel factions is also showing no sign of respite.

A group of break-away Tamil Tiger renegades known as the TMVP have vowed to continue their attacks on the bases of their former comrades.

Sources allege that many of the recent attacks attributed to the Tigers were actually the work of the TMVP.

Earlier this week the country’s third highest ranking army officer Maj Gen Parami Kulatunga was killed in a suicide bomb attack. Three others were also killed in the blast just outside the capital