Scores of child soldiers roam the jungle

Scores of child soldiers who survived the British raid on the West Side Boys on Sunday have dispersed into the jungle, the Freetown newspaper, 'Concord Times' reported. It quoted travellers along the highway leading from the Freetown peninsula to Masiaka, 51 km east of the capital, as sighting armed boys roaming near the jungle. It quoted a woman recently detained for 10 days by the West Side Boys as saying the children, of the so-called Small Boys Unit, had committed limb amputations and had even murdered their own parents. The boys, led by a 14-year-old know as "Killer", spend most of their time smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, she said.