Bremen, Germany  - German-based Tamils staged a protest against the Sri Lankan army's crushing of Tamil rebels, during a major religious gathering on Thursday.

Some 200 Tamils attended the rally in the northern city of Bremen where Chancellor Angela Merkel was among the 300,000 guests at the Protestant Church Congress.

The protesters, some carrying placards reading "more than 2,000 Tamils are dying each day in Sri Lanka," gathered in the centre of the city but were prevented by police from marching to the exhibition grounds where church leaders were meeting.

Police said there were no disturbances, unlike an earlier protest on Sunday when Tamils blocked railway tracks for two hours in Frankfurt Railway Station, one of Germany's main rail hubs.

The protests disrupted Germany's normally smooth railway operations, forcing express trains to discharge passengers at suburban stations.

Supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam rebel group have accused the Sri Lanka government of inhumanity to tens of thousands of minority Tamils in the former rebel zone of Sri Lanka.(dpa)