When Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) gained independence in 1948, and throughout the 1950s, the new government legislated increasing limits on the political and civil rights of the Tamil minority population. In the 1970s, against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions and increasingly violent discrimination against Tamils, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelan (the Tamil Tigers) formed a militant group to fight for an independent Tamil state. When the Tamil Tigers ambushed an army convey in 1983, anti-Tamil rampages broke out across the country; more than 2,500 were killed in the ethnic crisis, and government retaliation against the Tamil Tigers took the form of carpet bombing, disappearances and torture. Throughout the 80s, fighting between the Tigers and the government resulted in human rights abuses on both sides. After a cease-fire failed in 1990, all-out war broke out, and despite repeated attempts at peace talks since, the situation continues to deteriorate. In January of 2009, as government forces made advances into Tamil Tiger territory, the Tigers have been forced to retreat and as a result, as many as a quarter of a million civilians are trapped in a shrinking region with limited access to food, water and medical care; civilians, especially Tamils, are the victims of violence from both sides of this conflict.