Sri Lanka says killed children legitimate targets

COLOMBO - The Sri Lankan Government says it considers children killed in an air strike to be combatants and legitimate targets.

"If the children are terrorists, what can we do?" said military spokesman Brigadier Athula Jayawardana, defying growing international condemnation. The Government claims children killed and injured in the bombing on Monday are child soldiers conscripted by the Tamil Tiger rebels.

United Nations children's organisation Unicef condemned the air strike as "shocking". Unicef's head, Ann Veneman, said: "These children are innocent victims of violence."

The Tamil Tigers are known to use conscripted child soldiers. But Unicef says its information indicates the children killed in the air strike were schoolchildren attending a first aid course. And there is international concern at the Government's statement that it is prepared to target and kill child soldiers.

The full details of what happened in Monday's air strike near Mullaitivu remain confused. The Tamil Tigers claim that 61 schoolgirls were killed in the air strike, but no one has been able to confirm that figure. The area where it took place is largely cut off from the rest of Sri Lanka by the fighting. But what is clear is that a large number of young people were hit. Unicef staff who were allowed to reach the site saw more than 100 youths between the ages of 16 and 18 being treated for injuries in hospital, many of them critical.

It is also clear that there were deaths. Members of the European ceasefire monitoring mission were also allowed to visit the site, and they saw 19 bodies aged between 17 and 20, according to Thorfinnur Omarsson, the monitors' spokesman.

"Even if it is a 17-year-old child in terms of age, they are soldiers who are prepared to kill whoever comes in front of them," said Government defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella. "Therefore the age or the gender is not what is important."

The Tigers initially claimed the air strike had targeted an orphanage, but it has emerged that all the orphans had earlier been moved to another site.

The Sri Lankan Government said what it hit was a Tiger military base, showing journalists what it said were aerial photographs of firing ranges and weapons stores at the site. The European monitors said they saw "no evidence of a military installation" during their visit.

Unicef said its information was that the compound was being used for a first aid course, and that children from nearby schools were staying overnight for the two-day course.

Unicef estimates the Tigers currently have 1300 child soldiers in their ranks, with an average age of 16 - a practice Unicef has been working to make the Tigers end.

Schools have been closed in Government-controlled areas for two weeks for fear of retaliatory attacks on children, after a known Tiger front group threatened to target civilians in revenge for the air strike.

Fighting continued around the Jaffna peninsula, in the north yesterday. Norwegian mediators have been working to persuade both sides to return to a 2002 ceasefire, but without success.

- INDEPENDENT