More than 100 children were among a large number of Tamil civilians killed in a weekend 'bloodbath' in Sri Lanka, a UN has spokesman said.
The Sri Lankan military and Tamil Tiger rebels have blamed each other for the artillery attack in the country's north-eastern conflict zone that reportedly killed more than 370 civilians.
Gordon Weiss said the UN had been warning of a bloodbath as tens of thousands of civilians have been trapped in a narrow patch of coastline where the Tamil Tigers are fighting to hold back a massive military assault.
'The large scale killing of civilians, including the death of over 100 children, over the weekend shows that the bloodbath scenario has become a reality,' Mr Weiss said.
A government physician working in a makeshift hospital in the conflict zone said he had counted the bodies of 378 civilians after an all-night assault that lasted until the early hours yesterday.
He said the attack had also left over 1,000 people wounded.
Meanwhile, three journalists working for Britain's Channel 4 news have been deported by Sri Lankan authorities for alleged false reporting on the conflict.
Sri Lanka's government claims its soldiers are on the verge of defeating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after 37 years of conflict.
At the height of their powers in 2006, the Tigers - who want an independent Tamil homeland in the Sinhalese-majority island - controlled roughly a third of the island.
The Tigers have since been driven back into a sliver of land on the northeastern coast, where the UN has accused them of holding up to 50,000 Tamil civilians hostage.
Sri Lankan leaders have refused all international calls for a ceasefire, despite reports from the UN last month saying up to 6,500 civilians may have been killed and 14,000 wounded in fighting since January.
