Child Soldiers Head Home for New Life

Six months after being pulled out of rebel forces fighting in Sudan’s 18-year civil war, a batch of former child soldiers has gone home.

U.N. officials said Wednesday that 3,480 former child fighters--some as young as 8--have been sent back to their homes in southern Sudan after being retrained as teachers, mechanics and farmers.

Over the next 18 months, the U.N. Children’s Fund will oversee the return of 4,000 other former child soldiers taken out of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which promised the agency it would remove all children from its ranks.

The first batch of youths spent six months in transit camps, where they did job training, before returning to their homes in the Awil East and West regions of Bahr el Ghazal province in southern Sudan.

Martha Bragan, an official of the U.N. children’s agency, said she didn’t foresee re-integration problems for the children and their families.

“The families and children are not estranged,” Bragan said.

Another 1,600 child soldiers from the south-central Bor region are next on the list to be demobilized, said Martin Dawes, UNICEF’s spokesman in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

In February, the rebel army said 30% of its forces could be considered children because they were younger than 18. But only 5% to 7% were believed to have done any actual fighting.

UNICEF and other organizations are pitching 90 tents for makeshift classrooms and clinics in southern Sudan to help with the demobilization. The World Food Program has begun distributing food to schools and sunk 13 wells.

The Awil East and West regions have been bombing targets of the Sudanese government. But Ushari Mahmoud, a UNICEF child protection officer, said the areas were currently safe because seasonal heavy rains are hampering troop and aircraft movements.

The People’s Liberation Army has been fighting the government in the mostly Arab and Muslim north since 1983, demanding greater autonomy for southern Sudan, where most of the people follow traditional African beliefs and about 5% are Christian.

The war has led to the deaths of an estimated 2 million people--most of them in war-related famines--and has forced 4 million people from their homes.