Military

DATE=10/25/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=Lanka Camp Attack (L-only)cq

NUMBER=2-268407

BYLINE=Vikram Singh

DATELINE=Colombo

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

///Editors Please update casualty figures in the intro///

///Editors Re-issuing to change intro to show that Vikram Singh is a VOA stringer, not a correspondent.///

INTRO: Villagers in the central hills of Sri Lanka have attacked a government controlled rehabilitation camp for former Tamil child soldiers. At least 12 of the detainees have been killed, and as many as 16 injured. As Vikram Singh reports from Colombo, the men at the center receive vocational training.

TEXT: Officials say that a night of tension culminated with villagers storming the

rehabilitation camp in Bandarawela and attacking detainees with knives and stones. According to army officials, inmates took the officer in charge of the camp hostage on Tuesday. They say the initial crisis ended peacefully when the

army restored order, but that the situation turned again as villagers stormed the camp early Wednesday.

The District Government Medical Officer in Bandarawela confirms Sri Lankan army reports

that the victims all suffered from wounds inflicted by swords and blunt objects at the hands of local villagers. He says no security personnel or villagers were amongst the casualties.

The International Committee of the Red Cross condemned the attack saying that Sri Lankan authorities are responsible for the safety of inmates under their care.

Officials say the rehabilitation center in the mountains some 200 kilometers east of Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, is home to over 40 former child soldiers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The inmates are now between the ages of 14 and 25. The Tamil Tiger rebels are fighting for

a separate state in the north and east of Sri Lanka. According to officials, the inmates of this rehabilitation center had been captured or had surrendered to security forces in the conflict areas. At the camp, officials say, inmates are provided with vocational training in order to build new lives and re-enter society.

//Begin Opt// The Bandarawela rehabilitation center had been highlighted in an Associated Press report in September this year, the first time authorities allowed foreign media into the camp, which officials say is the only one of its kind run by the government in Sri Lanka.

Observers of Sri Lanka's 17-year-long civil war say the Tamil Tigers have long been accused of using children as young as 10 as combatants. According to the AP report, the rebels have only once responded to the charge, in December 1998. The report says the rebels promised a United Nations representative for Children in Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, that they would stop recruiting children under 16. //End Opt//

According to a police spokesperson in Colombo, the detainees were demanding that authorities speed up their rehabilitation when they took the

hostage and set off this chain of events.

(signed)

NEB/VS/PLM