Female suicide bombers aren’t just killing people in Iraq.

A suspected Tamil Tiger bomber blew herself up while she was being frisked by soldiers processing civilians trying to escape Sri Lanka’s northern war zone on Monday. The Washington Post reports that at least 28 people were killed — including at least eight women and children — and another 60 were wounded in a crowded refugee camp in Vishvamadu, a town in north Sri Lanka that has been gripped by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The AP says more than 800 civilians had crossed the front lines and were being searched by soldiers when the bomber attacked. The Sri Lankan military recently took over the town to corner the Tigers. 

"A large number of civilians are coming in seeking protection from the army," said military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara. "When we were checking this female — by a woman soldier — she exploded herself. It shows their desperation at this stage in the war."

Since 1983, the Tamil Tigers have waged a separatist war in their attempt to create an independent homeland for the nation’s ethnic Tamil Hindu and Christian minority to be free of the alleged economic and racial discrimination by the government controlled by the Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Sri Lanka’s military last week said its soldiers captured the largest training base for Tamil Tiger suicide bombers. It was there that human bombers ate their "final dinner of death" before killing themselves and others. The situation in this country is dire. About 4,700 civilians fled the war zone Sunday, with 20,000 so far this year. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has refused Britain and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call for a "temporary no-fire period" to allow more civilians to evacuate. The United Nations and aid groups like the Red Cross estimate that the fighting is causing a humanitarian catastrophe among an estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in war zones.