UN Says 6,500 Civilians Have Been Killed in Sri Lankan Conflict

The United Nations says nearly 6,500 civilians have been killed and 14,000 wounded in fighting in Sri Lanka over the last three months, according to a UN document circulated among diplomatic missions.

The figures are contained in a document handed to the Associated Press by a foreign diplomat today. The UN has declined to publicly release its casualty figures.

The quarter-century civil war has flared in recent months as government forces pushed to crush the Tamil Tiger rebels in their remaining territory in the north.

According to the UN figures, 6,432 civilians have been killed in the fighting since 20 January and another 13,946 have been wounded.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, announced the dispatch of a humanitarian team at a news conference in Brussels yesterday. It believes there are still 50,000 trapped in the last war zone in the north – a sliver of coastal land where more than 100,000 civilians have fled in the past week.

"So many lives have been sacrificed. There is no time to lose," Mr Ban said. He added that the new team would monitor the situation and the UN would do "whatever we can to protect the civilian population who are caught in the war zone".

Sri Lanka's government has rejected a UN appeal to allow more aid agencies into the war zone,.