Sri Lankan Tamil rebels release child soldiers

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, October 04, 2003

Sri Lankan Tamil rebels release child soldiers

Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels Friday released over 50 under-aged combat soldiers under an actionplan signed with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), officials of the organization said.

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Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels Friday released over 50 under-aged combat soldiers under an actionplan signed with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), officials of the organization said.

A total of 22 boys and 29 girls were freed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels to a transit home in Kilinochchi, the rebel-held district in the war-battered north.

The transit home was set up under the UNICEF action plan agreedwith the Tigers.

The action plan was signed during the third round of peace talks between the LTTE and the government in Oslo, Norway in December last year.

UNICEF officials said two more homes are due to open in the eastern provincial districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa and thechildren would be reintegrated into the society.

The LTTE rebels were accused of continuing to recruit child soldiers despite an assurance given to the UN special representative on children Olara Otunnu in 1998.

Although it is difficult to give a figure on the LTTE's child soldiers, the UNICEF said in February it has records of some 700 under-aged children who served as the LTTE combatants.

The international truce monitor, Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), has also blamed the Tigers for their child recruitment policy.

Both the UNICEF and the SLMM claimed that the Tigers have recruited around 300 children since they entered the ongoing ceasefire with the government in February 2002.

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