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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Child soldiers

April 2024

  • Young men in civilian clothes with guns pose with soldiers in uniform in Monrovia, Liberia

    Liberia senate votes to establish war crimes court

    The court will investigate crimes against humanity committed during the African country’s two civil wars between 1989 and 2003

February 2022

  • Captivating … John Rwothomack in Far Gone.

    Far Gone review – child soldier’s story told with chilling intensity

    John Rwothomack, performing his own one-man play, depicts a Ugandan boy terrorised into fighting for the Lord’s Resistance Army with visceral power

September 2021

  • Tigray Defence Forces militiamen, Mekelle, Ethiopia

    The battle for Mekelle: Ethiopia’s civil war over Tigray goes on – in pictures

    Two million people have been forced from their homes and thousands are dead in the civil war in Ethiopia that broke out last November when government troops entered Mekelle, the Tigray capital. Witnessed by photographer Sergio Ramazzotti, the city was retaken by the Tigray Defence Forces in June, but peace in the region seems a long way off

August 2021

  • Victoria Nyanjura

    Voices for justice
    ‘Collective strength’: the LRA captive restoring dignity to survivors in Uganda

    Kidnapped by Lord’s Resistance Army rebels as a girl, Victoria Nyanjura has pushed through major reforms for victims of abduction and rape

February 2021

  • Dominic Ongwen, a former commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda

    ICC ready to rule on ex-child soldier accused of war crimes

    Dominic Ongwen was abducted by Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army aged 10 before rising to high rank

September 2020

  • Moses, 15

    'I had to kill so many people': the battle to protect children in conflicts

    25,000 grave violations were committed against children in conflict in 2019, says the UN

September 2019

  • Nesrine Malik

    Saudi Arabia won’t attack Iran. But it may pay someone else to

    Nesrine Malik
  • A former child soldier in Yambio

    Rise in children forced to join militias raises fresh fears over South Sudan

August 2019

  • Junior soldiers during a passing-out parade at Uniacke Barracks in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

    The Guardian view on 16-year-old soldiers: armies are for adults

  • Newly released girls who were recruited by armed groups and responsible for cooking in the bush hold hands during their release ceremony in Yambio, South Sudan, on February 7, 2018.

    'Before I was kidnapped I had friends': girl soldiers of South Sudan

February 2019

  • Graduation parade at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, England.

    UK army should stop recruiting children, health experts say

  • Members of South Sudan’s Nuer white army

    South Sudan's war: a relentless litany of almost unimaginable horrors

August 2018

  • Focus group with girls formerly associated with armed groups, North Kivu, 2016. Sandra Olsson, top left with fellow researcher, Marie de la Soudière, and translator, Child Soldiers International

    Small Changes
    'Girls who leave militias get rejected': helping child soldiers go home – podcast

    Lucy Lamble talks to Sandra Olsson from Child Soldiers International, who works with girls formerly caught up in armed groups in Democratic Republic of the Congo as they struggle to settle back in their communities

March 2018

  • Eunice and Bosco with their family in front of their hut in Gulu, Uganda.

    Kidnap, rape, escape… then a family: the tale of Eunice and Bosco

    In an extract from her book A Moonless, Starless Sky, Alexis Okeowo tells the story of a child soldier and a kidnapped schoolgirl in Uganda – and, below, talks about changing perceptions of Africa

February 2018

  • Released child soldiers in Yambio, in South Sudan’s Gbudue state

    'Crucial step' hailed as more than 300 child soldiers released in South Sudan

    Children to receive medical and emotional support as they prepare to rejoin their families after ceremony in Yambio

December 2017

  • A health official in the Nigerian town of Dikwa measures the arm circumference of a child as part of a drive to control malnutrition

    The year's top development stories: 2017 in review

    As Donald Trump cut funding for family planning and people from east Africa to Yemen went hungry, peace finally gained a foothold in Colombia

September 2017

  • Yemeni children carrying weapons take part in a gathering organised by Shiite Huthi rebels to mobilise more fighters to fight pro-government forces, on 18 June 2017 in the capital Sana’a.

    Child soldier recruits double in one year in Middle East and North Africa

    Report claims 28 million children living in countries at war are now in need of humanitarian help as families struggle to cope amid the chaos and violence

July 2017

  • “Tomodho” stands for a portrait in his family’s maize crop at home in Pibor, South Sudan, on June 24, 2017. Tomodho joined an armed group 2013, when he was 16 years old. “I joined the army because people were fighting,” he said. His uncle led him to join, saying it would be safer than being at home when the fighting arrived. He was given a gun, and became the bodyguard of a commander. “He was always in the front line, so we were always fighting,” Tomodho said. “I felt like I wanted to come back but there is a rule that when you join them you cannot come back,” he said. Tomodho was eventually demobilised as part of negotiations supported by UNICEF in 2015. He has since been involved in bread-making and leatherwork training, and is now an apprentice with a local NGO. “Now I can go wherever I want. I am free.” *name changed Credit: Phil Hatcher-Moore/UNICEF

    Modern-day slavery in focus
    ‘If you are old enough to carry a gun, you are old enough to be a soldier’

    South Sudan has the largest number of child soldiers in Africa. Most are still fighting, but efforts are being made to disarm and reintegrate them into society
  • Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr, 30, is seen in Mississauga, Ont., on Thursday, July 6, 2017. The federal government has paid Khadr $10.5 million and apologized to him for violating his rights during his long ordeal after capture by American forces in Afghanistan in July 2002. (Colin Perkel/The Canadian Press via AP)

    Payout for Guantánamo teenager could boost rights of child soldiers

    The case of Guantánamo teenager who received apology from Canada could set precedent for children accused of terror crimes
  • This is Belonging advert from the British Army.

    British army is targeting working-class young people, report shows

    Recruitment campaign’s audience is 16- to 24-year-old C2DEs despite MoD’s claim of targeting all socio-economic backgrounds, internal document shows
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