Child soldiers still fight in Congo

Report DAKAR, Senegal “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 yesterday. 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.In one instance last month, the group charged, a brigade commander dragged six children out of a vehicle belonging to child protection workers. Three of the youngsters were later taken in by United Nations peacekeepers, but the other three are unaccounted for, the group said.Officials in the Central African nation's government said they were looking into the allegations, and could not comment until the investigation finishes."We have said there will no longer be children in the army,'' said Maurice Kanyama, counsel to Congo's information minister. "For the moment we can't say yes or no on this. We need to verify it. Around the end of next week you can have some conclusions.''