What a childhood these unfortunate kids have experienced!!! Can we even imagine how traumatized they must be?
EX-CHILD SOLDIERS LIVE WITH SCARS OF WAR
Conflict in the Central African Republic
BY ALEXANDRA ZAVIS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICK LOOMIS
May 11, 2014
Jordy, 14, joined the rebels for survival and revenge. At least 6,000 children and probably many more are believed to have been recruited or abducted in the Central African Republic conflict. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
SIBUT, Central African Republic Not long ago, Charly had all the money he needed. He had a rebel uniform that commanded fear in his hometown. He had an AK-47, and he wasn't afraid to use it.
He was still a boy, but he felt like a man.
Now he has returned to his old life. He is once again a helpless boy. The thought of it makes him sit rigid with anger, his eyes flashing.
"See the shoes I'm wearing," the teenager snapped, pointing at a pair of dusty blue flip-flops. The soles were so full of holes that he might as well have been barefoot.
With the rebels, he said, it was different: "I had boots, a uniform and a gun in my hand."
With the rebels, he had power.
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The conflict tearing the Central African Republic apart has not only turned neighbor against neighbor. It has brought childhood to a halt.
Children have seen their parents hacked to pieces. They have watched as boys and girls just like them were shot or maimed. Some have been forced to make cold calculations far beyond their years, taking up arms with the same fighters who upended their lives or killed their relatives.
Children have been pawns in virtually every conflict in this country plagued for decades by coups, mutinies and rebellions. When a mostly Muslim rebel coalition known as the Seleka seized power a little more than a year ago, as many as 3,500 children were in the ranks of armed groups. The number swelled to 6,000 or more as self-defense militias, mostly Christian or animist, started fighting back, UNICEF estimates.
Read more at:
http://graphics.latimes.com/child-soldiers/
EX-CHILD SOLDIERS LIVE WITH SCARS OF WAR
Conflict in the Central African Republic
BY ALEXANDRA ZAVIS | PHOTOGRAPHY BY RICK LOOMIS
May 11, 2014
Jordy, 14, joined the rebels for survival and revenge. At least 6,000 children and probably many more are believed to have been recruited or abducted in the Central African Republic conflict. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
SIBUT, Central African Republic Not long ago, Charly had all the money he needed. He had a rebel uniform that commanded fear in his hometown. He had an AK-47, and he wasn't afraid to use it.
He was still a boy, but he felt like a man.
Now he has returned to his old life. He is once again a helpless boy. The thought of it makes him sit rigid with anger, his eyes flashing.
"See the shoes I'm wearing," the teenager snapped, pointing at a pair of dusty blue flip-flops. The soles were so full of holes that he might as well have been barefoot.
With the rebels, he said, it was different: "I had boots, a uniform and a gun in my hand."
With the rebels, he had power.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The conflict tearing the Central African Republic apart has not only turned neighbor against neighbor. It has brought childhood to a halt.
Children have seen their parents hacked to pieces. They have watched as boys and girls just like them were shot or maimed. Some have been forced to make cold calculations far beyond their years, taking up arms with the same fighters who upended their lives or killed their relatives.
Children have been pawns in virtually every conflict in this country plagued for decades by coups, mutinies and rebellions. When a mostly Muslim rebel coalition known as the Seleka seized power a little more than a year ago, as many as 3,500 children were in the ranks of armed groups. The number swelled to 6,000 or more as self-defense militias, mostly Christian or animist, started fighting back, UNICEF estimates.
Read more at:
http://graphics.latimes.com/child-soldiers/
