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UNICEF wants LTTE to stop recruiting children

By V. S. Sambandan

UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, embraces a former LTTE child soldier at a rehabilitation school, at Jayanthi Nagar in Kilinochchi, Northern Sri Lanka, on Friday. — Photo: Sriyantha Walpola

COLOMBO. FEB. 1. Stepping up the international pressure on the Liberation Tigers of

Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the UNICEF today "strongly urged'' the rebels to discontinue recruiting children.

Terming the recruitment of children "a severe threat,'' the UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, said the multilateral agency "did not approve of it.''

The issue would be taken up again after this month's fifth round of talks to be held in Berlin on February 7 and 8, Ms. Bellamy said, adding that the UNICEF was working on an action plan to address the issue.

``We do not have a magic wand'' she said, adding that the Tigers had proposed to establish transit centres for children who had joined them.

Ms. Bellamy, who is on a three-day visit to Sri Lanka, said she was "encouraged by the LTTE's commitment to children'' following her meeting with the LTTE's political wing leader, S. P. Tamilchelvan. Another meeting has been planned between the LTTE and the UNICEF after the Berlin talks "to set out concrete steps to implement the LTTE's commitment to ensure that no children are recruited in the armed forces and to release children who have participated in armed combat,'' she said.

Ms. Bellamy's visit comes amidst reports of continued child recruitment by the Tigers. The Sri Lankan President's office said last week that a majority of those recruited by the LTTE during the ongoing ceasefire were children. The LTTE has said that it was releasing the children enlisted by it and blamed the latest reported recruitment on junior cadres, who had done so without the knowledge of the leadership.

The LTTE had released some 350 child soldiers since November 2001 but UNICEF still had a list of 730 cases of child abductions blamed on the Tigers.

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