DRC: At least 11,000 child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are either still with armed groups or unaccounted for - more than two years after the country began demobilizing its boy and girl fighters, according to Amnesty International.
Other children continue to be recruited in eastern parts of the country where insecurity persists, the human rights group has said in a report published today.
Amnesty has called on the Congolese government, which is holding landmark elections, to intensify efforts aimed at tracing the children, who were recruited from the age of six upwards.
The country began a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programme in June 2003 with $200 million (€160 million) of international donor funding.
The plan was to target an estimated 30,000 children and 150,000 adult fighters who had got caught up in the DRC's decade-long war, which had claimed almost four million lives.
Amnesty said the implementation of both this strategy and a separate plan to integrate 150,000 adult soldiers in the state army had been "badly delayed by a lack of political and military will to engage in the process, as well as serious management and technical problems.
"Ongoing insecurity in eastern DRC has also disrupted and at times threatened to undermine the programmes."
There was particular concern for the fate of girl soldiers, who had often been raped while in captivity.
Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty International's Africa programme, said: "In some areas girls make up less than 2 per cent of the children released from armed groups and passing through the . . . programme - despite the fact that they make up approximately 40 per cent of the children used by armed forces and groups."
DRC, which achieved a fragile peace in late 2003, held its first multiparty elections since independence last July. A run-off presidential poll is due on October 29th.
Amnesty said "as one of its first steps" the new government should "ensure that all children associated with the armed forces and groups are released, protected, and provided with meaningful educational and vocational opportunities to enable their durable reintegration in the community.
"This is critical to preventing the re-recruitment and further abandonment of these children.
"International donors should recognise the urgency of this need and provide appropriate assistance."
The report, which follows fact-finding missions to eastern DRC and the capital Kinshasa over the past two years, found that children - defined in the report as people aged under 18 - "were routinely recruited and used by all Congolese belligerent forces until 2003".
Representing at least 20 per cent of the fighting forces in the DRC, the youths used to carry supplies and ammunition if they weren't sent into combat. Some had also been "instructed to kill their own families".
The report warned: "The country remains deeply unstable and several armed factions remain suspicious of or openly hostile to the peace process, apparently ready to resume fighting if they believe their interests are not secured by the post-election environment."
Despite the peace process, children "remain a reservoir of potential strength for these forces".