COLOMBO: Despite repeated pledges by LTTE guerrillas to free all its underage combatants, the UN children’s agency stated last week that Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels still hold as many as 1,358 child soldiers. The statement came as the government confirmed they would formally take up the issue of LTTE child soldiers at the next round of peace talks scheduled to be held in April in Switzerland.

Unicef said the Tamil Tigers have recruited 5,368 child soldiers since the 2002 ceasefire agreement with the government.

Despite the rebels releasing several child soldiers, and there being cases of children escaping the LTTE camps, the Unicef database still showed that 1,358 child combatants are at present with the rebels, a spokesperson for the organization said.

Meanwhile the government military last week organized a press conference with two underage combatants who fled from rebel camps and took shelter with the Sri Lankan navy.

The two teenagers, aged 15 and 17 describing how they were forcibly taken away by armed LTTE cadres in eastern Trincomalee, said they were being trained to be suicide cadres.

“I was returning from school. They came in a van and grabbed me and hit me. They put me in the van and drove away. My brother kept pleading with them to let me go,” 15-year-old K. Vinoharan, told journalists.

The boys said they were told by their ‘leaders’ to prepare to sacrifice their lives.

The Nordic truce monitors, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SMMM) spokesperson, Helen Olafsdottir told Dawn that investigations have been initiated based on the accounts given by the two teenagers on their abductions.

The government military said two more 15-year-old teenagers were abducted by the Tamil Tigers from eastern Batticaloa. The teenagers, Sudakaran Sulochan and Jeyaraj Krishnan were abducted while returning from tuition class after school, the report said.

Rebel spokesperson, Dayanidi claimed that the LTTE was facing problems with young children who gave false ages to join the organization.

“They often lie about their ages to join the movement. We free them when we find out,” he asserted.

Meanwhile Dr. Hiranthi Wijemanne, a child rights specialist said the number of children currently with the LTTE could be even higher than records indicate.