24 teenagers kidnapped by Tamil rebels

Tamil Tiger rebels kidnapped 24 Tamil teenagers, mostly girls, while they were attending class ahead of annual examinations, the Sri Lankan military said today.

The reported kidnapping took place in eastern Ampara yesterday evening, according to military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe. He blamed the country’s main separatist rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

“A group of terrorists came to the tuition class and took the students by force,” Samarasinghe said, adding that the victims were 21 girls and three boys.

The teenagers, who were all 15 or 16 years of age, were attending a special class to prepare them for an important annual exam, Samarasinghe said.

The Tamil Tigers are known to have used thousands of underage combatants in their two-decade separatist war against government forces. Although a cease-fire went into effect in 2002, the two sides have resumed almost daily fighting.

The insurgents control a vast area of north-east Sri Lanka where they have their own laws and run their own courts, police and administrative system.