UNICEF: Tigers still recruit children [March 24, 2006-9.15 GMT]

Children are still being kidnapped by Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers to train, as fighters, the UN children's agency UNICEF says, but the abductions appear to be less frequent four years into a ceasefire.

The number of children taken by the Tigers has fallen every year since a 2002 ceasefire halted two decades of civil war, UNICEF senior programme co-ordinator Yasmin Ali Haque said, but child recruitment was still continuing at an unacceptable level.

"Most of them are forcible," she told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday in UNICEF’s Colombo office. "Children going home from school are apprehended. They're sat behind a motorcycle and then they're off. They're gone."

Finding a lasting end to a war that has already killed more than 64,000 people was key to giving children more options and stopping them from wanting to fight, she said. Talks between the government and Tigers are due to continue in Switzerland next month, but the rebels continue to threaten a return to war.

Courtesy Reuters

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Last Updated Date: March 24, 2006 -9.15 GMT