The LTTE have admitted to kidnapping at least 21 students in the East, the BBC reported yesterday.

An LTTE spokesman told the BBC that junior Tiger fighters had made a "serious mistake" in taking the children from their school.

Correspondents say that in the past the Tigers have always denied abducting children to use as soldiers.

LTTE military spokesman Rasaiah Ilanthirayan told the BBC Sinhala service that the junior Tigers who abducted the children had been expelled from the movement.

He said that the children were being handed back to their parents.

Earlier, army spokesman Brig Prasad Samarasinghe told the BBC News website that the children, mostly teenage girls, were abducted in the eastern Ampara area.