Annan renews calls for focus on child soldiers

The disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration into society of armed forces in conflict situations was essential to the success of any peace agreement, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the UN Security Council on Thursday. He also said the UN needed “to build on its current role by strengthening its focus on the needs of child soldiers”, as it had done by including child protection advisers in the recent expansion of MONUC. During the Security Council debate, Egyptian delegate Ahmed About Gheit noted that disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) needed the agreement of the parties involved in the conflict, but that armed groups which were not party to the Lusaka agreement were a source of destabilisation in eastern DRC. No peacekeeping operation would be complete without “a wide programme to disarm those groups”, he added.