Sri Lanka death toll figures

SRI LANKA has for the first time made public its heavy casualties from the last phase of the 25-year war.

Officials said 6,261 soldiers were killed and 29,551 injured since a battle in July 2006 that the military marks as the start of Eelam War IV, the final stage of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Troops killed 22,000 LTTE fighters during Eelam War IV, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.