Losses among the Colleagues mentally disturbs Sri Lankan Forces; SF sending Children to war fronts

Raw recruits are increasingly sent to the battle fronts in Vanni with minimum training due to the substantial losses in recent battles in Vanni, especially in Killinochchi and Mulaitivu area. Due to ferocious resistances and heavy fighting causes substantial losses of lives among the Sri Lankan Security Forces (SF) which causes huge psychological problems to the colleagues in the battle fronts in Vanni.

Significant numbers of mentally disturbed SF troopers are being admitted in the Mulleriya mental hospital in South, according to the South based news paper report.

Meanwhile, one of the Identity Cards recovered with a dead body of a young SF trooper revealed that the SF trooper killed in the offensive forefront in Mullaiththeevu district on Saturday was a 17-year-old boy. LTTE officials displayed photos for reporters in Vanni on Sunday. According to the Article 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, signed and ratified by the Sri Lankan government, the government (State Party) should ensure that members of their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities.

The LTTE has earlier said that the dead bodies of SLA soldiers recovered in the battlefront in Vanni displayed victimisation of young generation Sinhalese into the war by the Sri Lankan state.

The latest Child Soldiers Global Report of 2008 has listed Sri Lankan government among 14 countries that recruited, and in some cases used in hostilities, children in auxiliary forces, civilian defence groups or in illegal militias and armed groups acting as proxies for official armed forces.