Teenager Joins Militia, Flees Congo

This is a M23 news story, published by Guardian, that relates primarily to Gilbert news.

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Congolese armed groups

Guardian

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‘I went to war. It was a nightmare’: how children have become ‘cannon fodder’ in DRC’s endless conflict

Summary

Nutrition label

74% Informative

Armed groups have plagued North Kivu for decades , a holdover from regional wars that played out in eastern DRC during the 1990s and early 2000s .

Militias during the period were notorious for recruiting child soldiers, known as kadogos, or little ones’ in Swahili .

The practice never went away, but experts say it has surged since the outbreak of the M23 conflict.

Another demobbed minor, 17-year-old Gilbert

, escaped an ethnic- Hutu militia last year . He managed to get the right paperwork after chancing upon a helpful aid worker in a displacement camp. He has since received vocational training as a mechanic. “We were kadogos, people could do what they wanted,” says Gilbert , dressed in a workman’s overall. “I don’t want other kids to go through the same thing.”

Names have been changed.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language

possibly offensive

Hate speech