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UNICEF slams Sri Lanka rebels on child recruitment+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)COLOMBO, April 17_(Kyodo) _ The United Nations Children's Fund decried Monday the death last week of a 17-year-old in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam auxiliary "in a reported claymore mine incident" and called on the LTTE to immediately release all underage recruits within its ranks and end child recruitment. In a short statement "deploring" the death of the underage recruit, UNICEF said the incident "underlines the risks children are exposed to when used in direct combat or in support roles such as the delivery of supplies." The LTTE has been mounting claymore mine attacks on the Sri Lankan security forces and police in recent days with more than 50 military and police personnel killed in such attacks in the past week. There have been some civilian deaths as well in the attacks with two British humanitarian workers, passing a targeted military vehicle last week, injured in one blast. "Recruitment of children is a direct violation of their right to protection from violence," said UNICEF, which has long monitored child recruitment by the Tigers and made many statements critical of the practice. |