A leading human rights group has asked the United Nations to publicize its estimate of civilian deaths in the final weeks of Sri Lanka's civil war amid escalating reports over how many died.



Amnesty International said in a statement late Friday that it has received "consistent testimony" that both government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels killed thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone and called for an independent international investigation. The group did not say who had testified to the alleged abuses.



The U.N. said earlier that 7,000 civilians were killed and 16,700 wounded from Jan. 20 through May 7. However, these estimates circulated among diplomats were not released publicly.



Amnesty cited an investigation published on Friday in a British newspaper, The Times, which said that some 20,000 civilians were killed in the final phase of the war.



The report followed weeks of allegations that large numbers of civilians had been killed as the army closed in on Tamil Tiger rebels to end the decades- long war.



Amnesty's Asia Pacific director Sam Zarifi accused both sides of war crimes and called for an independent international probe.



"The Times report underscores the need for this investigation and the UN should do everything it can to determine the truth about the bloodbath that occurred in northeast Sri Lanka," an Amnesty statement quoted Zarifi as saying.



The statement said the UN "must immediately publicize its estimate of the number of civilians killed by the two sides in the final weeks of fighting".



The Sri Lankan government, which has dismissed calls by the UN Human Rights Council for a fact-finding mission on the war crimes allegations, on Friday angrily dismissed the Times report.



"These figures are way out," defense ministry spokesman Lakshman Hulugalle said. "We totally deny the allegation that 20,000 people were killed.



Amnesty said, however, that it continues to receive reports of widespread human rights violations, with more than 280,000 people displaced by the recent fighting and now restricted to state-run welfare camps in the island's north.



The government said last week it had ended the 25-year separatist war on the island with the killing of top rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his military and political leadership.



Throughout the fighting reports emerged that government soldiers fired at densely populated civilian areas with little regard for their safety and that the rebels prevented civilians from fleeing the war zone and used them as human shields.



However, independent verification of these allegations was not possible because the government had expelled the aid groups from the conflict zone and prevented journalists from reporting firsthand.



Earlier this week the U.N. Human Rights Council rejected calls to investigate allegations of war crimes and praised the government for crushing the rebels.



Sri Lanka's allies on the 47-member council forced through a resolution condemning the Tamil rebels for using civilians as human shields but stressing that the war was a "domestic" matter that did not warrant outside interference.



The U.N. estimates that 80,000 to 100,000 people were killed in the war that began in 1983.

