22 January, 2007 - Published 19:58 GMT

'Abducted' Tamil youths escape

Five Tamil teenagers abducted by a Tamil militant group were handed over to the police in Sri Lanka by the ICRC.

Polonnaruwa SSP, Jayantha Wickramasinghe, told BBC Sandeshaya that the five youths were kept in a training camp in an unidentified location by a "terrorist organisation".

He did not name the Tamil Tigers.

The children have escaped from the camp and then informed the ICRC through somebody else, he said.

Appeal on safety

"One of them is 19 years old and others are between 14-16 years," Wickramasinghe told journalist Raj Weerasinghe.

Police said three children were from Trincomalee district, another from Dimbulagala and the other youth was from Valaichchenai, in Batticaloa.

Parents gathered to Polonnaruwa police station appealed to the police to guarantee the safety of their children.

One teenager has told the police that he was abducted in Gallella on 10 January while working in a rice mill by a group came in a three-wheeler taxi and taken to Welikanda.

Child recruitment

He was then taken to Trincomalee in a van by the abductors.

There were another 12 youths at the camp when he was taken, the teenager has told the police.

International truce monitors have said they have reliable information that Karuna faction of the Tamil Tigers are camping in Polonnaruwa district.

United Nations and human rights organisations have accused both the LTTE and the breakaway faction led by Karuna alias Vinayagamurthy Muralitharan of continuously recruiting child soldiers.

Sections of the Sri Lanka security forces are accused by the UN of helping the Karuna faction to recruit children.