AfricaBlog

Children of the Congo

Amnesty International has put out a report on children being recruited into military service in the Congo. Children as young as eight are being indoctrinated into a brutal military culture--and a nation is slowly being robbed of its future.

This from a Guardian report:

But Amnesty's reportpaints a grim picture of the failure to disarm tens of thousands of children who have suffered - and inflicted - atrocities at the behest of myriad groups vying for territory and mineral wealth in the anarchic east.

"While in a period of supposed transition to peace, all parties continue to recruit combatants, including a large number of child soldiers," it says.

They may be ordered to do anything, including torture and executions.

"[They are] forced to kill, to rape, to kill own families; forced into cannibalism and sex acts with corpses; given drugs and alcohol to numb/ cloud feelings."