Somali Islamic Militias Recruit Child Soldiers, Amnesty International Says

[Jacaylbaro]

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The Islamic militias that control most of southern and central Somalia are stepping up their recruitment of child soldiers in the famine-ravaged country, Amnesty International said yesterday.

 

The “systematic recruitment of children,” many of them under 15 years old, is escalating, the London-based human rights organization said in an e-mailed report today.

 

At the same time, civilian casualties have mounted this year as fighting intensifies in the capital, Mogadishu, Amnesty said in a separate report. At two hospitals run by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the number of war- wounded “rose sharply” this year, with 933 patients treated between May 1 and May 15, 398 of them children under the age of five, Amnesty said, citing the Red Cross.

 

“It is shocking that the international community has not put into place a mechanism to systematically investigate war crimes and other serious abuses in Somalia,” Amnesty said.