Rebels accused of recruiting child soldiers

The New York-based organisation, Human Rights Watch, on Tuesday accused the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) in eastern DRC of continuing to recruit child soldiers in its battle against the government. “Children are being abducted and sent to battle by the very soldiers who are supposed to protect them,” said Alison des Forges, a senior adviser in HRW’s African division. In its report, HRW said RCD-Goma “has repeatedly pledged to demobilise its child soldiers but has not fulfilled these promises”.

“As the use of child soldiers attracted increasingly critical comment from international observers, RCD-Goma moved recruiting efforts further from urban centres, making it harder to document their activities,” the report said. “They are also increasingly using promises of rewards to enrol poor and hungry children who lacked other sources of support.”

“According to observers on the spot, trucks are still rolling through Goma, transporting children to military camps in the Congo and even to Rwanda for training,” Des Forges said. “This is bad news, both for those children and for hopes for peace in the Congo.”