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Congo-Kinshasa: Congo Army, Gen. Nkunda in 'Worst Form of Human Trafficking'
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Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
31 January 2008
Posted to the web 31 January 2008
Kigali
DR Congo government forces and rebels loyal to dissident Gen Laurent Nkunda are heavily recruiting and using children traficked from Rwanda and Uganda to fight their wars, the latest UN report on the issue has indicated.
The movement of armed groups across borders to recruit children from refugee camps continues to be alarming, the report released yesterday by the UN said.
Since January 2007, the report says, there has been a surge in the recruitment and use of Congolese and Rwandan children in North Kivu from refugee camps and communities in Rwanda by forces loyal to Laurent Nkunda. Ugandan children living in the DR Congo-Uganda border areas have also been targeted.
As for how the DRC army (FARDC) comes into the equation is in a way that in November 2006, government and Gen. Nkunda agreed to mix their forces in a process known as 'mixage'. This would later create mixed brigades. This process has since fallen apart.
The mixage, according to the report resulted in the de facto presence of many children among the ranks of the new FARDC mixed brigades and their use for active combat against the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR).
Reports also indicate that increased recruitment activities were carried out in North Kivu, as well as in Rwanda and Uganda, prior to and throughout the mixage process.
The UN says this surge appears to have been linked to the strategy of commanders loyal to Gen Nkunda to increase the number of troops to be mixed and the strength of forces prior to engaging in combat operations against FDLR and the Mai-Mai in North Kivu.
The transportation of vulnerable children by both the Government and rebel groups across borders during armed conflict constitutes one of the worst forms of child trafficking, the report by the UN Secretary General's envoy on children in armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy.
Following the resumption of fighting in late last year between the army and Gen. Nkunda, the UN says there have been increasing numbers of children forcefully rounded up in schools. These children are apparently given guns to fight and the girls are used for sex.
Children who escaped or were separated indicated that recruitment was ongoing in the returnee settlements of Buhambwe, Masisi territory in North Kivu. There are also the Kiziba and Byumba refugee camps in North western Rwanda, in the towns of Byumba and Mutura in Rwanda. The town of Bunagana on the border between DR Congo and Uganda is among the targeted areas.
Illegal association?
In DRC, as with Burundi and other countries, governments there are rounding up children and detaining them in large numbers for alleged association with armed groups. The Congolese government is aid to be holding these children in 'detention centres, local prisons, interrogation centres and holding camps'.
In certain situations, some of these children have been used as guides and informers for Government military operations, usually under coercion.
Many of the detained children are subjected to ill treatment, torture, forceful interrogation and deprivation of food and education, the UN says.
A total of 4,182 children, including 629 girls, were separated from armed forces and groups in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year.
In Ituri - North eastern DRC, 2,472 children, including 564 girls, were separated from MRC, FRPI and FNI militia forces and 10 boys were separated from Mai-Mai forces in the remote area of Opienga in Oriental Province.
In North Kivu, 1,374 children, including 52 girls, were separated primarily from mixed brigades loyal to Laurent Nkunda and government forces and Mai-Mai militia forces. The North and South Kivu are bearing the brunt of the brutal conflict that has ravaged the eastern DRC leaving thousands displaced.
As for South Kivu province, some 336 children including 13 girls, were separated from the Mai-Mai militias and troops associated with Laurent Nkunda.
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250.000 child soldiers
While precise estimates are difficult to come by, some 250,000 children globally are being recruited to fight in armed conflicts in violation of international law, Radhika Coomaraswamy said in New York as she launched the report.
Children are being recruited by groups in Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, the Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Uganda, according to the report.
Quand à moi je regrete beaucoup; du fait que l'ONU est surle sol congolais depuis longtemps mais il n'arrive pas à trouver la solution pour ces enfants qui meurent innocents Q:quelle est son role?
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