Sri Lanka ruled out a cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers on Friday despite growing reports of casualties among civilians trapped in the northern war zone, as the military pushed ahead with its offensive against the rebels.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa had urged the rebels to let the civilians leave the conflict zone by Saturday and guaranteed safe passage to all noncombatants. But the government insisted there would be no let up in its war to crush the rebels and end the country's 25-year-old civil war.
"We are determined not to have a cease-fire, and we are determined to eradicate terrorism in Sri Lanka," Human Rights and Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe told reporters.
The military ousted the rebels, who have been fighting for a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils, from all major towns after heavy battles in recent months.
The rebels are now cornered in a 115-square mile (300-square kilometer) area of jungle and villages in the Tamil-dominated north, where some 250,000 civilians are trapped, according to the Red Cross.
Samarasinghe disputed the figure, saying less than 120,000 civilians were in the war zone.
"We will continue to ... liberate those areas which haven't been liberated yet and then free these people," he said.
He denied reports that more than 300 civilians were killed in recent fighting and accused the rebels of forcibly recruiting civilians, giving them two or three days of training and putting them on the front line as cannon fodder.
"We have not targeted civilians and we will not target civilians," he said. 
But Tamil Tiger spokesman Balasingham Nadesan said the government has stepped up artillery attacks on civilian areas, leaving at least 28 people dead Friday.
Most civilians are "forced to live inside bunkers and civilian casualties were mounting," Nadesan said on a pro-rebel Web site, TamilNet.
"Only a permanent cease-fire mooted by the international community and (ensuing) negotiations would resolve the conflict," he said.
Dr. Thurairajah Varatharajah, the top health official in the war zone, said his hospital in the rebel-held village of Puthukkudiyiruppu was overflowing with patients with shell blast injuries. Many of them had no beds and were forced to stay in the hallway, he said.
Accusations and counter accusations by the two sides are not possible to verify because the government has barred most journalists and aid workers from the war zone.
Human rights groups accuse the rebels of holding the civilians hostage and the military of launching heavy attacks in civilian-filled areas, including a government-declared "safe zone."
The Red Cross said fighting was continuing in the north Friday, but welcomed Rajapaksa's announcement that the government would allow civilians safe passage.
"As far as we are concerned, we will try to seize the opportunity to evacuate more people, especially the wounded with their families," said Sarasi Wijeratne, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said top U.N. officials were "seriously alarmed" over the fate of civilians in the north.
"It seems there may have been very grave breaches of human rights by both sides in the conflict, and it is imperative that we find out more about what exactly has been going on," she said.
UNICEF said many children — some just months old — have been injured, some had been killed and others are living in poor conditions.
"The best possible thing for these children and their families is to be able to move to safe areas that are free of fighting, so that they can receive support and assistance," UNICEF's South Asia director, Daniel Toole, said in a statement.
More than 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war, which grew out of complaints by Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization at the heads of successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.
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