Colombo - Scores of civilians have been killed by government artillery in north-eastern Sri Lanka, a pro-Tamil rebel website said Thursday, as shelling claimed a Red Cross worker in the war zone.

Seventy-eight civilians, including 21 children and a pregnant woman, died in government fire Wednesday in the government-declared safe zone for civilians, Tamilnet reported, citing casualty figures coming in from affected settlements.

A day earlier, at least 73 civilians were killed in the north in air raids and artillery attacks by the army with most of the deaths being reported in the safe zone, Tamilnet said, but military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied the reports, saying he had no information about civilian deaths.

There was no independent confirmation possible because the area has been declared off-limits to journalists by the army.

Meanwhile, local Red Cross worker Vadivel Vijayakumar, 36, was killed Wednesday evening in the Valayanmadam area of Mullaitivu district, 400 kilometres north-east of Colombo, said Sarasi Wijeratne, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

She said the incident occurred immediately outside the government-declared safe zone.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack that killed him as Sri Lanka's military tries to gain control of an area of less than 60 square kilometres believed to be the last retreat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has fought for more than 25 years for a separate state for the Tamil ethnic minority in the northern and eastern parts of majority-Sinhalese Sri Lanka.

More than 1,000 civilians were killed and 3,000 injured in fighting in the north-east from January 20 to February 5, according to an EU report obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that cited UN casualty figures.

Other independent sources reported a month ago that the number of civilian deaths in weeks of fighting was at least 2,000.

Conditions for civilians in the final war zone has worsened in the past several months. A medical doctor in the area said medical supplies were running short and many of the injured were being treated without medicines.

According to government estimates, about 70,000 civilians remained in the area, but the Red Cross said the figure is around 150,000.

Tamilnet reported starvation deaths in the region this week. The government has allowed no more aid convoys into the war zone since the end of January.

The LTTE accused the government of firing in the region without regard to non-combatants while the military accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields and refusing to allow them to leave areas under LTTE control.

Human Rights Watch on Thursday called on the LTTE and government to agree to a plan to evacuate civilians from the war zone.

"The world is watching as a humanitarian disaster unfolds in Sri Lanka," said Brad Adams, Asia director for the human rights group. "The UN and concerned governments should step forward to help prevent needless civilian deaths in Sri Lanka."

The Red Cross worker killed died while returning from helping to evacuate injured people to a ship that was ferrying them to safety, Tamilnet said.

"In recent days, he was involved in ICRC-facilitated medical evacuations, helping to bring patients from the makeshift medical facility in Putumattalan to the beach and then on to the ICRC ferry for evacuation to Trincomalee," the Red Cross said in a statement.

More than 2,000 people have been ferried out of the conflict zone by the Red Cross.

The Red Cross said it would continue its work in Sri Lanka. (dpa)