Darfur kids 'sold as soldiers'

2008-06-07 17:49

London - Refugees from the Darfur conflict as young as nine years old are being sold to armed rebel groups as child soldiers, campaigners Waging Peace said on Saturday.

Children who fled the conflict in western Sudan are being kidnapped in refugee camps in neighbouring Chad and then trafficked back as child soldiers, the London-based human rights group said in a report.

Following research on the Darfur-Chad border, Waging Peace said that refugee camp leaders were reporting that children were being "kidnapped in broad daylight and sold to armed groups operating close by".

The children affected were mostly boys age between nine and 15 years old.

"The trafficking has taken place with the tacit approval of the Chadian government who are on site at the camps," the report alleged.

"Escalating violence - highlighted by the recent raid on Khartoum by the rebel group JEM (the Justice and Equality Movement) and the Government of Sudan's bombing campaign - has caused a rapid upsurge in the number of children being forcibly recruited to fight, as warring factions seek to swell their military capacity," said Waging Peace.

The United Nations estimates that between 7 000 and 10 000 child soldiers were recruited in eastern Chad in 2007, though the true figure may be higher.

"There are people in the camps who are responsible, who have links with the (armed) movements," an unnamed camp leader was quoted as saying.

"They sell the children who are 10 years old to join them. They sell them for money."

The UN says up to 300 000 people have died from the combined effects of war, famine and disease and more than 2.2 million have fled their homes since the Darfur conflict broke out in February 2003.

Sudan says 10 000 have been killed.

The conflict broke out when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on Earth.

- SAPA