Sri Lanka child soldiers freed

The United Nations children's agency says the Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka have released 13 child soldiers, some of them as young as twelve years old.

In a statement, Unicef welcomed the releases, but said further child recruitment had to stop.

Unicef said there were still nearly 400 unresolved cases of underage recruitment in the eastern part of the island.

A BBC correspondent in Sri Lanka says children were still being forcibly recruited even after the Tamil Tigers had begun a joint programme with Unicef to release all of their child soldiers.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service