Children in South Asia - Amnesty International Index 04/01/98 (extract from page 38)

Recruitment as Fighters Fifteen year old Raja went to the Teaching Hospital in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, complaining of insomnia, aggressive outbursts and irrational abnormal behaviour in late 1994. He had joined the LTTE at the age of 11 and underwent extensive training. He told doctors that after one attack where he lost many friends he was shown a videos of dead women and children and told that his enemies had done this. Soon afterwards he was involved in attacks on several Muslim villages near Batticaloa. When recounting one attack, he described how he held a child by the legs and bashed its head against a wall and how he enjoyed hearing the mother’s screaming. He said they deserved to die.