French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband have arrived in Sri Lanka for a one-day visit amid international concerns over the plight of civilians affected by the current conflict between the government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels, government officials and diplomatic sources said Wednesday morning.

Kouchner and Milliband are expected to hold talks with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama during their stay in the island, officials from Sri Lanka's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

They are also scheduled to visit the refuge camps in the northern town of Vavuniya where more than 100,000 civilians fled the rebel controlled areas and are being camped in the government set welfare villages.

Miliband has called for a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons in Sri Lanka, saying his priority of the visit "will be to address the humanitarian situation in northern Sri Lanka and the continuing grave risk to civilians in the conflict zone."

He has urged the Sri Lankan government to allow civilian oversight of all Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and to fulfill the commitments it has made to improve conditions in the IDP camps including better access to medical facilities, transparent registration processes, international monitoring, as well as freedom of movement in and out of the camps.

The Anglo-French foreign ministers' visits come closely on the heels of a visit by the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes, who failed to reach an agreement with the Sri Lankan government on the access to the conflict area by the UN.

The international focus on Sri Lanka has been raised since last week when a large number of Tamil civilians trapped in the northern battle zone escaped into government-controlled territory.

The Sri Lankan government said on Monday that its combat operations against Tamil Tiger rebels in the north had reached their conclusion and the security forces would end the use of heavy weapons which could cause civilian causalities, but it clarified later that it's operation of rescuing civilians would continue.

The government said it is on the verge of totally crushing the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as almost all of the 15,000-sq-km territory held by the LTTE has been captured by the government in a military offensive launched in 2006.