COLOMBO, 19 July 2007 (IRIN) - For four years, R. Ganesh and his wife Lakshmi have held out hope that one day they would see their son safely return to his home in Trincomalee District in eastern Sri Lanka. Lakshmi has hardly stopped crying since the day her only child, Jeggan, then nine years old, was taken away by members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and forcibly recruited as a soldier. Jeggan was abducted on 14 December 2002 by four LTTE soldiers, dressed in combat uniforms, who forced their way into the family’s house. “They stuck guns to our foreheads and told us not to scream,†Lakshmi told IRIN. “They blindfolded the three of us and told us that we had to fight for the Tamil struggle,†she added. “They then took my son away and we have not seen him since.†http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=73308 The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, is a militant organization that has been waging a violent secessionist campaign against the Sri Lankan government since the 1970s in order to create a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). [wiki] Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens all over the world with children being pressed into battle. Just wanted to bring this to mind so we can appreciate the things we may have that they do not.
Thanks for sharing the article. This type of thing happens all of the time in Sri Lanka. Before the war in Iraq the US was sending in troops to help the Sri Lankan Army, but since Iraq the funding has been cut for those missions.
great article. This war is not going to stop. Now it's more than 20 years now. I'm a Sri Lankan citizen.
LTTE did not use child soldiers. But they did it once during 90s. How about killing innocent tamil children and their mothers by shelling hospitals in rebel area?