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DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - Congo's new government has failed to stop the use of child soldiers — merging forces of former warlords into the regular army without weeding out hundreds of underage fighters, an international human rights group said Thursday.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said 300 to 500 children, some as young as 13, are serving in newly combined army brigades in remote North Kivu province. The group said the figures came from local and international child protection workers.
"The head of the army has given the order that child soldiers need to be demobilized and taken out of the ranks, but despite the order, nothing is happening," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a London-based Congo researcher with Human Rights Watch.
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