The young soldiers of the Congo

[assrancid]

Congolese children forced to fight  

 By Peter Greste
BBC News, Goma  



"We were on our way back from school when we met the rebels. They made us carry some luggage for them and then told us to go with them," says a 16-year-old caught up in the recent unrest in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Jean Vierre, whose name has been changed for his safety, is now in the care of a foster family in Goma, placed there by UK charity Save the Children.

But his story points to a disturbing new trend.

  When the rebels saw me trying to escape they shot me

Haguma [not his real name], 18

In the last few months, fighting between the Congolese army and rebels has escalated, and more and more children are being kidnapped to bolster numbers amongst the various militia.

Jean Vierre was one of a group of 10 ambushed some two weeks ago.

He, his six classmates and three teachers were abducted in what appears to be a well-planned attempt to find new recruits.

"When we got to the camps, the rebels told to join the military forces. They took us and threw us in a hole. We were given military outfits and told we had to wear them," explains Jean Claude [not his real name].


The two boys managed to escape after two days but not before they saw many other teenage boys in a similar position.

Schools

Forced recruitment of child soldiers is nothing new in DR Congo, but Save the Children's Beverley Roberts believes the armed militia groups are now targeting entire schools or groups of students.

  


"We know that they're being used as porters, that's very clear. We have reports of children having to transport arms right now. That's very disturbing," she says.

"Unfortunately also you'll have the children sexually abused in these groups. Those are clearly some of the worst cases and then yes they are used as fighters, they might be trained as fighters - all sorts of uses. I mean you can only imagine."

We cannot identify the groups involved nor any of the individuals who were taken.

Save the Children does not want any reprisals.


See detailed map of the area
But they do want international condemnation and pressure to stop the practice. And it seems to be surging now, just as the fighting is escalating and the need for new recruits grows fast.


Another unwilling recruit, 18-year-old Haguma [not his real name] tells how he was recruited into the militia.

"I was at home when the rebel militaries came and took me by force and told me that I had to fight the government soldiers," he says.

"I was wounded in the village of Mgunga. The rebel soldiers were beaten. They headed to Rutshuru but I was carrying some heavy luggage so I stayed behind. I was also trying to escape.

"When the rebels saw me trying to escape they shot me. After I was shot the government soldiers took me to Goma."

Long process

Nobody knows the long-term effect of so many traumatised children on a society that Save the Children is doing its best to reintegrate them.

"Once we have identified where that child comes from we start to work with the family to receive that child again and make sure that the family is ready, they understand what the child has gone through," Ms Roberts says.

  I was just waiting for the day I would die so that it would end

John [not his real name], 15

"We make sure the child is ready. It's a long process but a necessary process."

The numbers are huge. Even before this latest surge in fighting, aid agencies estimated that there were 3,000 child soldiers across eastern DR Congo.

Now that number is almost certainly far higher.

It is doubtful that children like 15-year-old John [not his real name] will ever recover from their experience at the hands of the rebels.

"I knew that some day I would be shot or die from a disease because there was no medication or treatment available. I didn't like it at all. There was nothing I could do.

"I was just waiting for the day I would die so that it would end."


 


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[assrancid]

Children separated from parents by Congo violence
      , … KIBATI, Congo – Rebecca Nyiringindi scanned the sprawling refugee camp in eastern Congo, searching for just one person among the thousands of hungry and homeless.

"My mother's name is Alphonsine," the 10-year-old said softly, sucking her thumb. "She's short. She's very dark."

Rebecca was among more than 150 children searching for their parents Thursday in a camp in Kibati, just miles from where soldiers and Tutsi rebels guarded a tense front line, raising fears that fighting would resume in this mineral-rich region.

Some 70,000 refugees have fled to Kibati since fighting intensified in eastern Congo in August, displacing at least 250,000 people despite the presence of the largest U.N. peacekeeping force in the world.

Aid agencies took advantage of a lull in fighting this week to return to camps near the front line and resume registering children who were separated from their parents during the conflict in Congo's North Kivu province.

Some were clearly traumatized. Zawadi Bunzigiye, 6, stared down at her grubby blue dress and said, in a voice barely above a whisper, "I'm afraid of bullets."

Many children fled with only the clothes on their backs. When fighting erupted Oct. 27 in the rebel-controlled town of Kibumba, about 12 miles from the camp, Rebecca said she fled on foot, accompanied only by the family's goat.

"But I lost it," she said. "It was a chocolate-colored goat. It was a big goat."

She said her parents sent her to the camp, believing she'd be safer there.

"The military came in. I was afraid," she said. "I hid next to the radio tower. My parents said, 'Go, we'll come after you.' I went along the road and I didn't see them again."

There are no schools in the camp, and young children run underfoot all day, dodging waves of new arrivals. At night, say residents speaking in fearful whispers, drunk soldiers rampage through, raping women and girls.

Neema Maombi, 8, fled the northern town of Nyanzale, about 60 miles from the provincial capital of Goma, in early September with her sister Solange, 16. Her account of being caught in this complicated conflict is simple.

"I heard bullets," she said. "I ran."

Asked to describe her parents, the child plucked at her tattered blue shirt and said: "My mother is small. My father is short."

"My mother makes good food, like potatoes and beans," she added with a shy smile. "She makes banana beer."

UNICEF says hundreds of children have been separated from their families since fighting flared in August, and that overall more than 1,600 children in the province are seeking their parents. Just 17 have been reunited with their families in the last three days in Kibati.

Those who have not are taken in by other families — and they wait.

"Children who are separated are particularly vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, violence and recruitment into armed groups," said UNICEF spokesman Jaya Murthy.

The youngest child registered at Kibati is 3 and the oldest 17, according to Save the Children.

Their young ages and inability to give detailed information — plus the lack of official records in the Congolese countryside — make it even more difficult to track down the children's families.

"We're doing everything possible to find the families of these children," Murthy said. "But we're talking about tens of thousands of people who have fled. It's just not that easy to find where these people have gone."

Congo's conflict has been fueled by festering hatreds left over from the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which half a million Tutsis were killed. More than a million Hutu extremists who participated in the slaughter fled Rwanda for the safety of Congo.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi, accuses the Congolese government of not doing enough to protect minority Tutsis from the Hutu militias. A corrupt and ineffective government, and rival claims to the country's vast mineral resources, have fanned the violence.

Aid agencies say they are concerned about the children's vulnerability to malnutrition and disease.

Squatting by a muddy stream Thursday, a young boy used a plastic bag to draw water, then drank the opaque contents. Downstream, other children played in the murky water.

A girl walked by, hunched over with a jerry can of water in one hand, one strapped to her back and another balanced on her head. Nearby another girl, no more than 3 years old, wandered among strangers, her filthy green dress slipping off her left shoulder. Camp occupants said they did not know where her parents were.

A Congolese soldier who appeared to have taken up residence in the camp despite aid agencies' refusal to assist combatants staggered forward, his two rifles akimbo. He demanded food and money from a reporter.

The little girl looked around and whimpered. He yelled at her to stop, and she started to scream.

[Deeks]

That is real sad. The funny thing is. They forcing them lil boys to fight for them now. When them boys get older they go start terrozing the same people who force them to fight for their so-called cause.

[zuluwarrior]

Man that is so facking sad the things these children go through all because man fell he know what is best for the country .I was looking at cnn they had a 10 yr old kid in a camp , the kid said that he was a soilder he killed about 20 people ahready .