56 young ex-LTTE combatants reunited with families

"Another batch of ex-LTTE members, totalling 56, who had undergone rehabilitation have been handed over to their parents," an official statement said today.

Many of the former rebels, including child soldiers, had quit the terrorist organisation at the height of the military operation against the Tamil Tigers in Wanni and surrendered to the security forces, an official statement said.
They went through a rehabilitation programme at the Nawasenapura Rehabilitation Centre at Welikanda in Southern Sri Lanka.

They were reunited with their parents after a period of a year in a ceremony presided over by Major Gen R M D Ratnayake, the Commissioner General of Rehabilitation.
Earlier this month, the Sri Lankan government had released over 745 former rebels in Sri Lanka's Vavuniya district where they have been housed after the end of a decades-old civil war. Out of those released, 98 were children.

The government has launched initiatives to rehabilitate more than 11,000 LTTE cadres with help from civil society, corporates besides the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and USAID.