Children Battle Their Peers in South Sudan's Civil War, UN Says

Hundreds of South Sudan’s children have been killed or maimed fighting their peers during the country’s two-year civil war, in which as many as 16,000 minors have been forced to participate, the United Nations Children’s Fund said.

Children “have been used to fight and perpetrate violence against other children and civilians, or serve as cooks, cleaners or to carry heavy loads while on the move,” Unicef said Thursday in a statement e-mailed from the oil-producing nation’s capital, Juba.

A new peace agreement signed by President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar in August means both pro-government forces and insurgents must immediately release all child-soldiers, said Ettie Higgins, Unicef’s deputy representative in the country. “Children should be in school, not on the battlefield,” she said.

South Sudan has been engulfed by conflict since December 2013, when a power struggle in the ruling party led to fighting within the presidential guard and the fracturing of the army. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, which has forced more than two million others from their homes, according to the UN.