According to BBC, an estimate of one out of every ten child soldiers lives in the DRC. Michel Chikwanine of the Congo was abducted at the age of five to be a soldier. He managed to escape to Canada and wrote his autobiography about his experiences being a child soldier. He said it was one of the hardest things any human being ever has to go through, which is completely understandable. He was just outside playing with his friends and he, as well as some of his friends, were taken to become soldiers. Once they got to the camp, they were drugged and Michel was even forced to kill one of his best friends! He managed to flee a couple weeks later when the village was raided. In 2004, Michel and his mother moved to Ottawa, Canada. His father was a human rights activist and was poisoned while taking refuge in Uganda.
This man has unbelievable courage to be able to tell his story and let the world know of the atrocities that are going on in the DRC. All sides of the misshapen civil war conflict act like they are manly and better than the other faction when they take children soldiers that fight and do their dirty work. The ones that claim to be the most manly have children backing up their words. This is unbelievable how many children soldiers are in one country. 1 out of every 10 is from the Congo! That is an astronomically high number. Everything in the Congo has to stop. It has gone way too far. If at all possible, the country should just split to be run by the different factions that control the areas in my opinion. It should at least stop some of the displacement going on in the never-ending conflict.
It is absolutely heartbreaking. I'm glad you chose to write about this because it is a problem about which not many Americans are aware.
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