The Ceylon News

A senior UN official in Sri Lanka says "many civilians" have died in the last two days of fighting in and around the port of Mullaitivu in the country's northeast.

Neil Buhne, the UN resident co-ordinator in Sri Lanka, said reports indicated an estimated 150,000 civilians were still trapped in the jungle battle zone and were in serious danger.

"It's really dangerous now. There are so many people, so many guns and such a high intensity of fighting," Bune told the Associated Press news agency on Tuesday.

"There have been many civilians killed over the last two days. It's really a crisis now."

The statement follows intense crossfire between advancing government troops fresh from capturing Mullaitivu, the last stronghold of the LTTE, over the weekend.

LTTE, or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, say they are committed towards the creation of an independent Tamil state in northern Sri Lanka.

Deep concern

Buhne's comments were echoed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, who expressed deep concern over the fate of the trapped civilians.

Ban urged the Sri Lankan government to "accord immediate and absolute priority" towards ensuring the safety of civilians and aid workers, and to ensure that those affected are treated in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Buhne later told Al Jazeera that although the Sri Lankan government had earlier made "very sincere efforts" to minimise civilian casualties, the tactic no longer applied amid escalating tension in the war zone.

"There are just too many soldiers around. You have the [separatists] intermingled with the civilians ... and you have thousands and thousands of well-armed Sri Lankan forces surrounding those civilians," he said.

"We think that it's a tinderbox that we hope will not ignite."

Rajiva Wijesinha, the secretary-general of the Sri Lankan government secretariat for coordinating the country's peace process, told Al Jazeera that the LTTE should be held responsible for civilian casualties.

"For the last three months, the LTTE, have been driving people with them to smaller and smaller areas, and even shooting people who are tying to get out," he said.

"And as the LTTE get more desperate, they are losing the lives of these people. The government actually declared a safe area a few days back, but then we had information that the LTTE were moving their ammunitions into this area."

Government denial

The Sri Lankan defence minister also told Al Jazeera in an interview that government forces exercised extreme caution during the offensive, and only fired on Tamil Tiger rebels.

An estimated 230,000 civilians are caught in the crossfire in Sri Lanka's northeast [EPA]

"We don't use indirect fire unless we are 100 per cent certain that those are LTTE camps or bases," Rajapakse said during the interview in Colombo.

"This is all LTTE propaganda."

Gordon Weiss, a UN spokesman in Colombo, said at least 30 civilians were killed on Monday inside an area the Sri Lankan military had declared as a "safety zone", while dozens more were killed or wounded over the weekend.