CLASSIFIED | POLITICS | TERRORISM | OPINION | VIEWS

TAMIL FAMILY FLEES TAMIL TIGERS TO SAVE THEIR CHILDREN FROM RECRUITMENT AS CHILD SOLDIERS

By Walter Jayawardhana

A Tamil family who escaped the Tamil Tiger dominated Vidaththal-Thivu area with three children told the Mannar Police that they ran away from their home as the Tamil Tigers were intimidating them to give their children to be recruited as child soldiers.

“The Tamil Tigers have intensified their campaign to recruit children,” the parents told Pallimunai Police Post after braving a potentially hazardous journey of escape through a heavily mined area to reach the police post.

The police said, the family had three children, a girl and two boys aged between 9-17 for whose safety the couple allegedly fled out of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam dominated areas.
The UNICEF, United Nations Children’s Fund has alleged that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam who are waging a war of separation from the Indian Ocean island Republic of Sri Lanka is holding 1591 children as child soldiers despite their public assurances to release them.

Some of the children are believed recruited as suicide bombers to be brain washed over the years.
The parents reportedly told the Mannar Police that they had been daily visited by the LTTE representatives instilling fear in them and for some time, they had stopped sending the children to school as they feared they would be kidnapped by them in schools and on the way to schools.
The family reached Pallimunai Police Post July 9 during the morning hours and the Police refreshed them with food and drinks as they were exhausted. Later , the security forces traced their relatives who took them into their care.

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