24 July, 2005 - Published 17:22 GMT

Tigers ‘intensifying child recruitment’

The United Nations say Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers are intensifying child recruitment.

The UNICEF office in Colombo said that the LTTE has recruited 28 children during July despite repeated pledges to stop child recruitment.

According to the UNICEF, there have only been 18 cases in June.

The agency says every time they raise the issue, the Tigers promise to ‘look into’ the matter, but kept recruiting under-age cadres.

“Not every one is forcefully recruited. Some do join the LTTE voluntarily,” Jeffrey Keele, communications officer for UNICEF told BBC’s Ethirajan Anbarasan.

“But the child recruitment needs to stop.”

The spokesman said the current no-war, no-peace situation in Sri Lanka make it difficult to find a permanent solution to the problem.

“It is going to be very difficult to see child recruitment ends once and for all without an active peace process going on.”