GENEVA — A group of United Nations human rights experts called on Friday for an international inquiry into the state of human rights in the Philippines because of the “staggering number” of unlawful killings by the security services and official attacks on people and institutions who defend human rights there.

In a strongly worded condemnation of President Rodrigo Duterte’s three-year rule, 11 United Nations special rapporteurs said the body’s Human Rights Council should set up an independent investigation “given the scale and seriousness of the reported human rights violations” and the climate of official impunity in which they occur.

“We have recorded a staggering number of unlawful deaths and police killings in the context of the so-called war on drugs, as well as killings of human rights defenders,” the experts said.

The joint statement, by an unusually large group of experts, seeks to galvanize international action in the Human Rights Council, which convenes a new session this month. Diplomats in Geneva, where the council is based, said that the Philippines was lobbying officials there against any council action. The Duterte administration had no immediate comment.

The Philippine authorities said last year that more than 5,000 people had been killed in the war on drugs that Mr. Duterte unleashed after taking office in 2016. The country’s human rights commission believes the number may be closer to 27,000.

“There are now thousands of grieving families in the Philippines,” the United Nations experts said. “We call on the international community to do everything possible to ensure there will be no more.”

Carlos Conde, a Philippine researcher for Human Rights Watch, urged the United Nations body to follow through on the experts’ request.

“The situation in the Philippines remains dire; the killings continue on a daily basis, with practically zero accountability,” he said, adding that “continued inaction” by the Human Rights Council on “the human rights catastrophe in the Philippines is no longer an option.”

Laila Matar, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director in Geneva, pointed to strong remarks made in March by the United Nations rights chief Michelle Bachelet, who noted that only one extrajudicial killing had been subject to investigation and prosecution.

Ms. Matar called an inquiry into extrajudicial killings and other violations in the Philippines “long overdue.”

Jude Sabio, a lawyer in one of two murder cases filed against Mr. Duterte at the International Criminal Court, said he would welcome a United Nations inquiry.

“I am also hopeful and confident that the I.C.C. will open soon an investigation into the Philippine situation,” despite Mr. Duterte’s withdrawal of his country from the court this year, Mr. Sabio said.

The experts’ intervention, which follows years of criticism of Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs, looks set to inflame a fractious relationship with the Philippine government.

The previous United Nations human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said in late 2016 that the Philippine authorities should investigate Mr. Duterte for murder over boasts that he had killed people he considered criminal suspects. That drew a vitriolic response from the president, who called him “a son of a bitch” and an “idiot.”

In their statement on Friday, the experts took aim at wide-ranging abuses beyond the war on drugs. They cited extrajudicial killings and summary killings of children, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, trade union representatives and land rights activists.

They also drew attention to accusations of arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, violence against women, and attacks on the independence of judges and lawyers, freedom of expression and assembly, as well as people’s right to food and health.

“Sadly those cases are just the tip of the iceberg, with many more cases being reported regularly,” the experts said.

The experts also drew attention to Mr. Duterte’s role in human rights violations, including inciting violence against drug suspects and threatening to bomb the schools of the Lumad, a minority Indigenous group on the southern island of Mindanao.

When the United Nations expert on indigenous people’s rights, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a Philippine national, challenged the government’s actions in December 2017, it sought to have her declared a terrorist. Ms. Tauli-Corpuz also joined the statement, along with experts on discrimination and violence against women.

The group voiced particular concern over the government’s failure to investigate or prosecute those responsible for the killings and other abuses. And they called the Philippines’ withdrawal from the International Criminal Court “the last of many actions demonstrating the government is seeking to evade scrutiny and reject accountability.”

Jason Gutierrez contributed reporting from Manila.

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