Two children killed by hand grenade

A hand grenade found by children near a school exploded in northern Sri Lanka, killing two Tamil children and wounding six others, police said.

The explosion happened in Jaffna after the children found and then threw away the grenade, police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said.

All the victims were under 10 years of age, police said.

Jaffna is the capital of a peninsula with the same name which is the Tamil minority’s cultural heartland.

Last year the government crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending a quarter-century insurgency for a separate Tamil state in the country’s north and east.

Jaffna is in the country’s north, but has been under the control of government troops since 1995.