18,742 TAMIL TIGERS HAVE DIED CHASING AN ELUSIVE GOAL OF A PUTATIVE STATE CALLED EELAM, LTTE SAYS

(By Walter Jayawardhana)
The Liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) announced that 18,742 of their Tamil fighters have died during the last twenty four years chasing an elusive goal of a Tamil putative state called Eelam.
The LTTE announcement published in the pro-LTTE websites said the number has been calculated since November 27 1982 when the first LTTE fighter 'Lt. Sanker' died.
Although the LTTE official list of the killed during the year 2006 contains names of 818 fighters it did not specify how many of them were child soldiers. According to records of human rights organizations, many of them have been kidnapped from homes, schools and playgrounds.
The terrorist group is well known of using underage children as cannon fodder for battles before sparing more professionally trained adult soldiers at the front. According to records such child soldiers were killed in large numbers during recent fights at Muttur and Kilali.
Due to the concealment of child soldiers for obvious reasons, the terrorist group does not announce the birthday on the tombs of the dead at the graves of soldiers in their cemeteries for martyrs. Instead, the group announces the day of death of the soldiers killed.
The LTTE website Tamil net said 568 men and 250 women fighters died in a war against Sri Lankan security forces during the year of 2006.
They said mostly they died of a defensive war, in a sense that certain parts of Sri Lanka belongs to them as 'Tamil land.'
For instance LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran referring to the LTTE closure of the irrigation canal Mavil Aru , that deprived 20,000 farmers their drinking and farming water that sparked the open war between the Sri Lankan security forces referred to Mavil Aru and Sampoor from which the LTTE troops were chased out as land belonging to them.