COLOMBO, Feb 6: A mob attacked the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) here on Friday in protest against the international humanitarian organisation’s alleged sympathy for the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The attack caused only minor damage to the building and no one was injured, ICRC spokesperson Sarasi Wijeratne said.

The cabinet spokesman for Defence, Keheliya Rambukwella, had recently alleged that international organisations like the ICRC were in cahoots with the LTTE. Some of their staff were in the pay of that terrorist organisation, he said.

Rambukwella charged that the ICRC had ordered 35,000 body bags on the plea that there would be massive civilian deaths in the Safe Zone in the Wanni area, as the Sri Lankan army pushed ahead to liquidate the LTTE.

Independently, the pro-government Sinhalese nationalist leader and MP, Wimal Weerawansa, called for expulsion of the Head of the ICRC in Sri Lanka for his alleged bias towards the Tamil rebels.

Reacting to the allegations, ICRC spokesperson Wijeratne said the organisation had ordered 2,000 and not 35,000 body bags. She said she was not aware of any cancellation as alleged by the government spokesman.

Suggesting that 2,000 was not an extraordinary figure given the fighting in the civilian areas in the north, Wijeratne said that in 2008, the ICRC handled 900 bodies of combatants and civilians from both sides.

The ICRC also supplied body bags to civil hospitals in the war-zone.