Statistics

In Somalia, within the last month, more than 1,000 people have been killed in Mogadishu, the capital, in a complex civil war compounded by warlords who command armies of teenagers.

A few of the countries who have reported use of child soldiers are:

In Uganda, the latest in a series of peace talks ---none were successful in their effort to end a reign of terror in rural areas by the Lord’s Resistance Army.

That group was mustered in the late 1990s in the name of the oppressed Acholi minority, but it soon degenerated into a drugged-out street gang living in the jungle with military-grade weaponry and 13-year-old brides. Its ranks are filled with boys who have been brainwashed to burn down huts and pound newborn babies to death in wooden mortars, as if they were grinding grain.

Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo,

Liberia, Myanmar, Uganda