10/24/2009 10:17:49 AM
Militia brigades abducting children and forcing them to become soldiers, porters and sex slaves is a huge problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In the last few months, fighting between the DRC army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified.
Aid agencies describe the situation as catastrophic, warning that recruitment is on the rise.
The children go through a terrifying ordeal as they are trained to kill almost as soon as they are recruited.
One tactic favoured by the militia is to force the child to murder a member of his own family
There are doubts whether such children will ever recover from their experience at the hands of the rebels - even if they escape, it takes time and a lot of rehabilitation before they are ready to go back to their families.
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow reports from Goma in DRC.
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