Colombo, May 06: Two Tamil Tiger intelligence operatives were shot dead in eastern Sri Lanka today amid allegations that the guerrillas had launched a fresh recruitment drive of child soldiers, officials said. The two were gunned down at Eravur in the Batticaloa district in what appeared to be a retaliatory attack for last night's killing of a rebel loyal to the renegade Batticaloa commander Karuna, police said. The killings came amid a stepped up recruitment of child soldiers in the island's northern region of Wanni, local officials and residents said. Tamil Tigers have begun enlisting young fighters in the northern Wanni district in the past two weeks after demobilising nearly 1,000 child soldiers who were loyal to renegade Karuna, a local official said. "We can confirm that a recruitment of children on behalf of the LTTE is underway in the Wanni," said Agnes Bragadottir, a spokesman for the Sri Lanka monitoring mission.


However, she said they were unaware of the exact numbers that had been recruited into the ranks of the LTTE, but they were in touch with the Unicef on the matter.


The Tiger recruitment effort came as Norway stepped up efforts to try and revive stalled talks between the tigers and the Colombo government to end a 32-year struggle for a separate Tamil homeland that has left 60,000 dead.

Bureau Report