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LTTE enforcing conscription, says Defence Ministry

COLOMBO: The Defence Ministry on Wednesday said the LTTE had ordered conscription of at least one child from every family in the territory under its control in preparation for war in the north and predicted that ranks of refugees from the north would swell in the coming days and weeks.

The grim scenario painted by the Defence Ministry followed days after Sri Lanka officially intimated the Co-Chairs about the reported plans of the Tamil Tigers on forcible recruitment and the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) initiated an enquiry into the charge.

The statement is based on supposed interviews with the people fleeing the LTTE controlled areas into the Government territory as well as its own “intelligence inputs” from the north.

The Ministry quoted an unidentified family of seven who arrived at an army point at Senmanthivu in Mannar on Monday as having said the families living in terror-dominated Wanni have to go into hiding in the jungle at night to save their children from the LTTE’s child hunters.

It said the number of refugees from the LTTE controlled Wanni would soon swell. Implied is the suggestion that the war would intensify. National and international NGOs feel that a shift of war theatre from east to north would have devastating consequences for the civilians.

The Ministry further claimed that the LTTE had ordered each family in the Wanni to provide two pints of blood following an air raid on the Senkadeer sea tiger base in Alampil. TamilNet claimed that detentions and targeted killings by the military and para-military forces allied to it inside High Security Zone (HSZ) in recent times has paralysed the people of Jaffna peninsula.

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