Three convicted of war crimes

SIERRA LEONE JUSTICE Although children have been used in wars throughout history, experts say their recruitment reached a new level in Sierra Leone at the end of the 1990s

AP , FREETOWN

"It's the first place in the world that the use of children became obvious, and was seen everywhere," Restoy said.

The group led by the three men committed their worst atrocities after they were pushed into the bush by an international peacekeeping force in 1998, said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch. It was then that they started "punishing the civilian population as a whole," she said.

It is estimated that about half a million people were victims of killings, systematic mutilation and other atrocities during the conflict.