IRIN Web Special on child soldiers

Armed to the teeth: Sierra Leonean rebel child soldiers near Freetown Credit: IRIN

JEMBE REFUGEE CAMP, When relief workers set up Jembe refugee camp in Sierra Leone to house people fleeing from civil war in neighbouring Liberia, it never occurred to them that children would become the biggest headache.

In mid-August, a group of about 20 child soldiers organised a strike amongst the 7,000 people living in the camp near the eastern town of Kenema to demand bigger food rations. They barred camp officials from entering the settlement until the police intervened.

"They are a stigmatised lot, having carried out grievous atrocities while in battle. They tend to feel bad and react accordingly," one counsellor at the camp told IRIN. "Violence has become part of their lives. They find it extremely difficult to recognise authority since they had power over the civilian population in their previous lives."

Within the camp, the former child soldiers organise cockfights and continue their old looting habits. They steal anything that can be sold, including cooking utensils, clothing and bedding. Some have even sold all the basic items given to them by relief workers, including their food ration cards.

"One dismantled a door frame of the house he was living in and sold the pieces of wood. Another sold his bed," another relief worker at Jembe camp told IRIN. Relief workers suspect that the kids, who were used to taking drugs and alcohol when they were fighting in Liberia, use some of the money to purchase marijuana. It is readily available nearby.

As at mid-September 2003 there were 168 Liberian former child soldiers living in eight refugee camps in Sierra Leone. Some looked only nine or 10 years old, but when asked, none gave an age of less than 15.

Most had arrived in previous months as rebel advances in northwestern Liberia forced several groups of government soldiers to cross into Sierra Leone and hand in their weapons to the local security forces.

The relief workers, none of whom wished to be named, said they were an unruly lot almost beyond the scope of counselling. Having tasted the power that comes from wielding a gun, they were unwilling to be told what to do and often became violent.

"They sometimes come to my house at night and demand food and sex saying that they know I am not a virgin and that in the bush they slept at will with women even better than me," a female social worker at Jembe camp told IRIN. "I have decided to always wear trousers while in the camp because they are quite serious with their threats."

With limited facilities for education or skills training in the refugee camps, it is an uphill task to keep these young teenagers occupied and out of trouble. Camp officials said they were often forced to seek help from local police over serious cases of theft and fighting. In such cases the child soldiers often ended up in the district magistrate's court.

Counselling

A psychiatric counsellor with the Centre for Victims of Torture (CVT) in Jembe camp said it took a lot of negotiation to even persuade the children show up for counselling sessions.

CVT is currently handling between 15 to 20 child ex-combatants, identified by social workers as the most difficult cases to deal with.

"After painstaking negotiations they eventually come when they decide to," said the counsellor, who like most of those dealing with these problem kids, was unwilling to be quoted by name. "We handle them quite gently and are trying to bring them to a point where they can acknowledge what they did and deal with the guilt."

The centre had divided the children put down for counselling at Jembe into two groups of 10 with the aim of encouraging them to support each other and make sure that they turned up for counselling sessions.

"Apart from getting them involved in the counselling and planning of activities for themselves, we have recommended that they be referred to as child soldiers and not ex-combatants - a stronger term embedded with negative connotations," the counsellor said.

These children found life in the refugee camps frustrating. They had all sorts of unfulfilled expectations, made worse by the restrictions imposed on them.

Only a few of the camps had access to secondary schools.

Upon arrival in a refugee camp, the younger child soldiers were put under the wing of a "care giver." The older ones were housed together in groups of three or four.

Brown Yehi, 17, was found by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) at a transit camp for Liberian fighters who had decided to cross the border and abandon the war. He was sent to Jembe refugee camp in May, but told IRIN that he found life there "very difficult".

Like many of the child soldiers, he was frustrated at being unable to lay his hands on luxury items that could formerly be obtained by looting. "I can't get things that I like such as sneakers, good clothes," he said in a soft but confident voice.

He said he wanted to go to school and learn to be a better person. But he was temporarily banned from school for not having the proper shoes. Yehi, who was dressed in shorts and T-shirt, said he only had a pair of plastic flip-flop sandals which were banned in the classroom.

He said he had been press-ganged into the government army by soldiers who picked him up while he was on his way to school in Nimba County, north central Liberia, over two years ago.

He was then made to fight for former President Charles Taylor in Lofa County near the Sierra Leone border, until the region was completely overrun by rebels earlier this year.

But, suddenly turning from a tough fighter into a vulnerable child again, Yehi said he had a deep longing to see his mother who was still in Liberia.

Aged 16, Emmanuel Cooper, was already a veteran of bush warfare, having spent three years fighting with another pro-Taylor militia unit in Lofa County. But he felt life in the refugee camp was much better. "I can do things for myself now," Cooper said adding that in the bush he and his comrades could only do what they were ordered to do by the commanders.

"I was captured in Monrovia at my father's carpentry shop where I was learning carpentry. We were flown to Lofa county in a military helicopter and recruited into the force. I left them in July and came to Sierra Leone," he told IRIN.

Cooper said he was one of about 30 child soldiers in his unit, which was based in Foya Kamala near the Sierra Leone border. Sometimes they carried out raids on surrounding villages to get their food. They also stole and sold palm oil and engaged in petty trade when there was a lull in fighting on the frontline. The money raised in this way was remitted to the commanders.

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