A new video allegedly showing Chinese forces shooting and killing at least one Tibetan refugee is prompting calls for an international inquiry from human rights groups.

The incident happened two weeks ago, high in the Himalayan Mountains, near China's border with Nepal.

China admits a shooting took place but says the guards fired in self-defence, after the refugees attacked.  But video captured by Romanian cameraman Sergui Matei, who was on a climbing expedition, shows otherwise.

On the tape, a line of Tibetans are shown apparently fleeing China through a high Himalayan passage.  The video also shows Chinese border guards watching from a ridge above.

Then the Tibetan leading the pack goes down after apparently being shot and then he gets up to start running again. "They're shooting them like dogs," a voice can be heard saying on the videotape.

"They were Tibetans trying to cross Nanga La to go to the Dalai Lama, and the Chinese police tried to stop them from going," said Matei.

The video then shows a second Tibetan at the back of the line get hit.

In a separate scene, Matei films a shape in the snow that he claims to be the body of a dead Tibetan. Human rights groups have quoted witnesses who claim the victim is a 25-year-old Tibetan Buddhist nun.

The Chinese pass close by the camp, then return the next day to pick up a body.

"They left the body for 24 hours on the glacier and after that they just buried (on) the glacier," said Matei.

Matei helped hide one Tibetan man for 12 hours and then showed him a quick route across the glacier.

The video, released by Romania's Pro TV, also shows three children walking in single file ahead of Chinese men in military uniforms with guns on their shoulders.

Thousands have escaped through the mountains since the Chinese crushed a Tibetan uprising in 1959, staking their claim to the territory with a brutal crackdown.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into in exile in India, condemned the shootings as "very sad," saying the incident was another example of repression since the Chinese takeover.

The Chinese government is promising to look into it, but denies an unprovoked attack. They claims troops were simply defending themselves against an attack by 70 people trying to flee the country illegally.

But Amnesty International's Alex Neve said the explanation is not good enough.

"Clearly what's happened are summary executions carried out by the Chinese government of unarmed Tibetans who were fleeing from Tibet to Nepal," Neve told CTV News.

Amnesty International says 20 more Tibetans are missing and nine were taken into custody, most of them children.

The International Campaign for Tibet blamed the incidents on the People's Armed Police, a paramilitary force of China's Defense Ministry.
The U.S. ambassador to Beijing, Clark T. Randt, also condemned the video by formally protesting "China's treatment of the refugees" in a visit to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

With a report from CTV's Roger Smith