'One minute we were on our way home, the next we had to dodge tracer bullets'

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Remorseless war that has lasted 18 years and cost 64,000 lives

Thomas Sutcliffe: Better to travel fearfully than not to arrive

Leading article: Better jaw jaw than war war with the Tamils

Dodging tracer bullets, running in blind panic from mortar fire and watching in disbelief as your plane home bursts into flames is no way to end a honeymoon. But that is exactly how it was for at least eight British newlyweds yesterday when a unit of Tamil Tigers on a suicide mission brought chaos to Sri Lanka's international airport.

Almost 50 British holidaymakers were among 300 passengers trapped in crossfire between Tigers bent on destruction and Sinhalese government forces caught unawares by the Tamil separatists' pre-dawn raid on Bandaranaike airport and the military base next to it.

By the time the attack was over some six hours later, 13 Tamils lay dead – many having taken their own lives– five military personnel had been killed, 12 people were wounded and 13 aircraft blown up.

"It was difficult to take in what was actually happening," said Martina Bellieni, 28, who married, Steven, 34, in Sri Lanka on 16 July. "One minute we were getting ready to board a flight home, the next we had tracer bullets and mortars coming at us. At one point, we were pinned down in a ditch for one and a half hours with bullets whizzing over our heads. One mortar explosion came within 100 yards of us. Quite simply, we were convinced we were going to die."

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had waited for the cover of darkness to penetrate the normally tight security around the compound. Armed with rocket-propelled grenades, machine-guns, mortars and light anti-tank weapons, they were probably already in position as coachloads of tourists headed to the airport 19 miles north of the capital, Colombo.

Among the the holidaymakers were at least six newlyweds: Mr and Mrs Bellieni, Mr Bellieni's brother, Jimmy, and his new wife, Candice, all from London, and Shaun and Beverley Hall from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. In the skies above Sri Lanka, Scott and Leigh-Anne Murray from Moray, Scotland, were about to land for the start of their honeymoon. They were all caught up in the firefight. "It was terrifying," said Mr Hall a 36-year-old pharmaceuticals worker. "We had flown in from Male in the Maldives and had a three-hour wait for our connection to London. It was dark, but then we heard a huge explosion and saw an enormous fireball. It was a military aircraft going up in flames."

Moments later, the Airbus A340 that had brought him from Male was blown up with four other passenger aircraft. "We went over to the windows and we couldn't believe what we were seeing," Mr Hall added. "Then you could see tracer bullets, mortars exploding and the glass pane swaying in and out with the force from the blasts. We knew we had to get the hell out of there but there was no one to help, no announcements, no staff leading the way. They abandoned us."

Britons said they asked airport staff for help but were ignored, or, in the case of Mrs Bellieni, were directed with members of her family towards the gunfire. Several survivors described escaping from the airport perimeter under fire, then being refused access to coaches commandeered by the ground staff.

"I thought we were going to die," said Mrs Hall, landlady of The Green Man in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. "We were running in the dark with bullets flying over our heads and we could hear the mortar fire coming closer. Eventually, we found a bus but the airport staff wouldn't let passengers on it. It was disgusting. We survived only because one worker got off to help us. He saved our lives."

She said the worker, Dilhan Dayarapne, flagged down a car for part of the journey, then got the Halls on a bus and a three-wheeled tuk tuk and handed them over to British embassy staff in Colombo.

Mrs Bellieni came under fire with her mother, Diwali Patel, 64, an aunt, Pushpa Umeria, uncle Kanti Palmer and friends Hazel Robertshaw and Debora and Norbert Amaning, as well as Jimmy and Candice Bellieni and their daughters Lola, three, and Leilani, nine.

Mr Hall said he believed the Tigers were not deliberately firing at civilians, but Mrs Bellieni disagreed. "They were trying to kill us and they were deliberately aiming for us. We kept trying to get out of the concrete ditch we were pinned down in but every time we did, they shot at us. Once, Jimmy managed to get my aunt out and hid her behind a tree.

"But when he tried it a second time with my uncle, they were ready for him and the tree was hit with gunfire. Jimmy got them down and led them back to the ditch. They were definitely aiming for us."

The attack coincided with the anniversary of riots in 1983 in which Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority killed 2,000 to 3,000 of the minority Tamils. The riots were seen as retaliation for a Tigers attack the previous day in which 13 soldiers were killed. Those three days of violence are regarded as the start of the 18-year war between government forces and the Tigers, who are fighting for a separate Tamil state. During that time, at least 64,000 people have died.

Yesterday's attack was seen, militarily, as a tactical triumph. As anyone who has used Sri Lanka's international gateway can testify, it is one of the most rigorously guarded airports in the world. Every car is checked on entry, everyone going inside must show tickets and prove identity and all bags are searched. Elsewhere in the sub-continent, heavy security often has a symbolic quality, but at Bandaranaike airport it seems genuinely rigorous and vigilant.

The scale of the attack, too, was breathtakingly ambitious. It was the first attack near the capital for eight months and the first time a conventional assault using automatic weapons and mortars as well as bombs had been mounted in the heart of Sinhalese-ruled territory. If Sinhalese army reports are correct, the entire operation would seem to have been intentionally suicidal: none of the raiders can have expected to get away alive. Tiger guerrillas are expected to take cyanide (they wear the poison capsules round their necks) or blow themselves up rather than be captured. And they usually do.

The island's £270m holiday trade is expected to suffer drastically from the raid. Renton de Alwis, chairman of the Ceylon Tourist Board, said: "There has been a lot of damage done [to our image]. Our primary concern at this time is to make sure all tourists who are here are looked after. [The Tigers'] choice of an economic as well as a defence target is not good news."

The airport reopened to civil traffic last night but the stranded Britons were not expected to begin leaving until later today. The Foreign Office is advising holidaymakers not to travel to the island for the time being. Before the airport opened, military aircraft had already used it to launch bombing raids on Tigers' bases in Jaffna, a region in which the doomed raiders of Bandaranaike airport are already being hailed as martyrs.