UNICEF warns of threats to child survivors of Asian tsunami

The UN Children's Agency has said that it is receiving disturbing reports of children being abducted in the wake of the tsunami.

More than one third of those killed in the Asia disaster are thought to have been children, many of them under the age of 12.

The huge death toll has also left thousands more orphaned or separated from their carers.

Maura Quinn of UNICEF Ireland said that the surviving children are often too traumatised to give details of who they are and, as yet, there are no mechanisms in place to register them - leaving them particularly vulnerable to abduction.