U.N. force : Scores of kid soldiers, a few of them as young as eight years old, have actually been rescued from an armed team in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.N. goal in the African nation stated.
The 82 kids, 13 of them ladies, were recovered considering that Sunday from the Mayi Mayi Bakata Katanga armed team in the southeastern Katanga province, MONUSCO said Friday in a statement.
The kids, aged approximately 17 years, had apparently been sponsored by the armed team within the past 6 months, it said.
Forty of them have actually been met again with their parents.
The others are being looked after till they can be returned home, the statement said.
“We are extremely worried by continued reports of active recruitment by Mayi Mayi Bakata Katanga and various other armed teams in eastern DRC,” stated MONUSCO chief Martin Kobler.
“Kid face unacceptable threats when they are sponsored for military functions. The employment of children, especially those under 15 years of age, could constitute a war crime and those accountable should be held to account.”.
Kid security firms in the province orchestrated the saves, MONUSCO stated.
Because the start of the year, 163 children, including 22 girls, have been saved from Mayi Mayi Bakata Katanga by MONUSCO and child protection employees, the statement said.
The country’s mineral-rich eastern part is at the center of an ethnic and political problem including its next-door neighbors to the east, Uganda and Rwanda, and has long been embroiled in physical violence.
The region’s humanitarian crisis includes 2.6 million internally displaced people, the United Nations says, with 6.4 million individuals in need of food and emergency help.
Nearly 20,000 troops are deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of the MONUSCO peacekeeping force.
82 child soldiers conserved in Democratic Republic of Congo
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