(Child Soldiers International) – Girls coming out of armed groups in Eastern DRC are often rejected by their families when they return home, with a number re-joining groups that abused them as a result, reveals a new report from Child Soldiers International published today. Released on the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in […]
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(UNHCR) – The escalating violence in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has internally displaced 1.3 million civilians inside the country. The rate of internal displacement due to the Kasai conflict is now estimated at an average of 8,000 people per day. Protection concerns and human rights violations have been reported, […]
(GCPEA) – More than 150,000 children are missing out on education because of violence and attacks that have seen over 600 schools damaged in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Other schools in the Greater Kasai region have been occupied by military forces or are being used as emergency shelters for displaced families. Even where schools have not […]
(TheGuardian) – Last week I received a message from a colleague in eastern Congo. Sylvain wanted me to know that there had been a mass prison break and among the hundreds who’d escaped was a man we had interviewed three years ago. Sabre was a second lieutenant in the Congolese army before being stripped of his […]
(IRIN) – The conflicts have destroyed communities and created thousands of child soldiers, serving directly on the front lines, or labouring as porters, cooks, and spies. Up to 40 percent of them are girls. In 2016, Child Soldiers International interviewed 150 girls formerly associated with some of the country’s multiple armed groups. Link
(African News Agency) – Vulnerable Somali street children are falling prey to terrorist groups forcibly recruiting them, or enticing them into their ranks using money. The Islamic militant al-Shabaab has emerged as the worst violator of international agreements regarding child soldiers. Muktar Ali Issak, chairman of a disabled persons organisation in the southern Bay region, said […]
(NRC) – Over 1.3 million people have been displaced by an outbreak in violence in DR Congo’s Kasaï Region since August 2016. Some 8,000 people were displaced per day in May alone. Almost half of those displaced are children, thousands of whom have been victim to indiscriminate violence, separated from their parents and recruited by armed […]
(The Economist) – WHEN Omar returned home after 40 days in a boot camp run by Islamic State, it was obvious something had snapped. Once a quiet boy and a fan of SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons, Omar, 12, had become aggressive. He told his mother to stop wearing make-up, refused to greet her female friends and became […]
(Frontier Myanmar) – Civilians caught in the middle of the ongoing conflicts in Myanmar’s north have been forced to suffer through torture, disappearances, forced labour and restrictions on humanitarian access, with fears on the ground that clashes will intensify in the months ahead, according to a new report by Amnesty International. Surveying the past 12 months of […]
(Newsweek) – Almost two years after the trial opened, Congolese military commander Bosco Ntaganda will take the stand on Wednesday at the International Criminal Court (ICC), charged with 13 war crimes and five crimes against humanity. Ntaganda’s charges —including the murder and rape of civilians and “the recruitment, use, rape and sexual slavery of children”—date back to 2002 […]
