Children as young as 12 are being given guns and forced to fight on the frontline alongside desperate Tamil Tiger rebels cornered inside Sri Lanka’s no-fire zone, the United Nations said on Sunday.
Those forcibly recruited included the 16-year-old daughter of a member of the UN staff, who had stayed inside the narrow strip of coast where the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are making their last stand.
Gordon Weiss, the UN spokesperson in Sri Lanka, said there had been credible reports of clashes between LTTE members and families on the beaches who had tried to prevent their children being taken. Some of those who resisted had been beaten or shot, he said.
“They are sitting there on the sand and groups of armed LTTE come along and demand a member of the family joins them. They ask for one or two children and they are running around grabbing people,” Weiss said.
“They have been taking children as young as 12, handing them a gun and marching them off and putting them to work. They are not being seen again by their families.”
As the fighting intentsifies, the LTTE is running short of experienced fighters and is relying once again on children to boost its numbers.
Weiss said many children living in areas controlled by the LTTE before the latest offensive received military training as part of their schooling. He added that the 16-year-old UN family member had now managed to escape from the fighting.
The Sri Lankan government said that close to 200 000 people were now either inside the internment camps it had set up outside the no-fire zone, or were emerging from the combat area.
UN sources said on Sunday they believed that, despite the exodus, as many as 150 000 people may remain inside the no-fire zone.
In a statement, the foreign ministers of the G8 countries today demanded that both sides take all necessary actions to prevent further civilian deaths.
According to official UN figures, at least 2 000 people are believed to have died in the fighting in the last month, although this figure does not include all of those killed in this week’s intense fighting. On Saturday two UN officials privately confirmed that the civilian death toll since January 20 is close to 6 500. Thousands more have been injured.
The Tamil Tigers claimed that food stocks in the region were depleted and starvation was “imminent”. Doctors working inside the no-fire zone have said some people have already died from malnutrition.
It is impossible to verify any of the claims because both the government and the rebels have prevented independent journalists from entering the area. The Sri Lankan military did take one party of journalists into the area on Saturday, but access was only granted under strict supervision.
India sent two officials to Sri Lanka on Saturday to demand a break in the fighting to allow civilians to leave, but the Sri Lankan government knows that victory is within its grasp and is in no mood to allow the LTTE any breathing space.
The US government said it was “deeply concerned” about the civilians and warned that abuses of humanitarian law would make post-conflict reconciliation difficult.
The UN sent John Holmes, its top humanitarian official, to Sri Lanka on Sunday to look into the welfare of the civilians.
The UN deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe said the humanitarian situation “continues to be critical, civilian casualties have been tragically high and their suffering horrendous”.
The pro-Tamil group War Without Witness claimed today that more than 26 184 Tamils remained unaccounted for. – guardian.co.uk