London: Protests broke out across Europe on Monday after Sri Lanka declared it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.
In Geneva pro-Tamil protesters faced off riot police, whilst there were calmer protests in Berlin, London and Brussels.
Sri Lanka's army chief, Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka, said earlier on Monday that his troops had routed the last rebels from the northern war zone on Monday morning.
While Prabhakaran was a hero to some, his group was branded a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union, and it was accused of waging hundreds of suicide attacks, including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female bomber.
The rebels demanded a separate state for minority Tamils after years of marginalisation at the hands of the Sinhalese majority.
Senior diplomats had appealed for a humanitarian cease-fire in recent weeks to safeguard the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone, but the government refused, and denied persistent reports it was shelling the densely populated war zone.
In London thousands of British Tamils staged an emotional protest in front of the country's Parliament, rejecting the reports of Prabhakaran's death and calling for international intervention in Sri Lanka.
Protesters covered themselves in homemade bandages stained with fake blood and re-enacted what they said were attacks by the Sri Lankan army on Tamil civilians.
British Tamils have been calling for a cease-fire, for humanitarian aid to be sent to the island nation's affected areas, and for the United Nations and international media to be allowed into restricted areas to assess the situation.
The UN's refugee agency said on Monday that 265,000 have fled the fighting in recent months. A spokesman said thousands were arriving in camps short on food stocks, land, shelter and water.
European Union nations on Monday have called for an independent war crimes investigation into the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, who chaired EU foreign ministers talks, said the EU wanted alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws investigated.
Meanwhile in Colombo more than one thousand Sri Lankans angrily protested outside the British High Commission, accusing the British government of supporting the Tamil Tiger rebel group after it tried to broker a truce between the warring sides.
The protesters were angry at recent efforts by Britain - the island's former colonial ruler - to broker a humanitarian truce in the war.
Protesters threw rotten eggs and stones at the embassy compound and burned an effigy of the British foreign secretary David Miliband before throwing it over the high walls into the compound.
Last week, Miliband called the conflict zone "as close to hell as you can get" and urged discussions to be held at all levels of the United Nations on the plight of the civilians.
Miliband has said that there have been "very grave allegations" of war crimes on both sides of the conflict and said that "they should be properly investigated."
The rebels were also accused of using the civilians as human shields and shooting at some who fled.
The UN said that 7,000 civilians were killed in the fighting between January 20 and May 7. Health officials in the area said more than a 1,000 others were killed since then.
Full-fledged war broke out in 1983 after the rebels killed 13 soldiers in an ambush, sparking anti-Tamil riots that human rights groups say killed as many as 2,000 people. By the time the war ended, more than 70,000 had been killed.