Thousands of child refugees from Darfur, some as young as nine, are being abducted and sold to warring militias as child soldiers, a British human rights group reported yesterday.
The organization, Waging Peace, has filmed testimony in refugee camps in eastern Chad, describing how children, mostly boys between nine and 15, have been forcibly taken from their families by camp leaders, who are then trafficking them to militias.
The report singles out the Darfur rebel group fighting the Khartoum government, the Justice and Equality Movement, as the main offender. But it says a variety of groups, including the Chadian army and opposing rebels, are also involved.
“This recruitment is taking place every day, in full view of the CNAR [Chadian government body in charge of refugees] and Chadian armed forces, who turn a blind eye to what is going on, and despite the presence of EU troops,” the report said.
The EU force in Chad, Eufor, will be made up of more than 4,000 troops, half of them French, and is due to be fully deployed by next month. Waging Peace is calling on the force, led by an Irish lieutenant general, Patrick Nash, to protect the refugee camps from the militias and to help stop the trafficking.
Louise Roland-Gosselin, the head of Waging Peace, said: “The deployment of the EU force means there is supposed to be security in the camps, but it hasn’t come true. People feel deceived.”
Roland-Gosselin said it was impossible to know how many children were being abducted, but the UN estimated last year that between 7,000 and 10,000 child soldiers had been forcibly recruited in Chad, where more than 250,000 refugees from Darfur are in camps. She said the problem had worsened since then, despite attempts by UN agencies and aid groups to negotiate an end to trafficking.
One of the refugee leaders told Waging Peace: “Now it’s worse, it’s not only aggressive but worse ... They are selling anybody, you know, the boys from nine to 15 in the camp they are just selling them.”
He accused other senior men in the camp of being involved in the trade.
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