- GOMA (Reuters) -- Leonard
Komayombi Safari, a skinny 12-year-old, does not flinch as he talks about
his bloody part in Congo's war.
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- "I always did as my commander told me. I used to
execute prisoners and those captured in war, but I never felt bad about
it as I never had a choice," he said. "In the end he let me go."
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- Safari thinks himself lucky to get out of a five-year
war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has claimed more than 3 million
lives, most of them civilians who perished through hunger and disease rather
than fighters.
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- Safari now spends his time at a rehabilitation camp on
the edge of the eastern rebel stronghold of Goma, where the marches after
morning lessons still give fighters a bit of a taste of their former lives.
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- Most of the boys in the camp fought for the Rwandan-backed
RCD-Goma, the biggest of the rebel factions struggling for a share of mineral-rich
former Zaire.
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- The group, determined to show itself to be a reputable
movement in a region of gangsters and savagery, has recently been shedding
some of its under-age warriors.
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- Some of eastern Congo's militias also have a few girls
among their ranks, though there are none at the camp in Goma.
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- SOLD INTO WAR
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- Safari said he had been sold by relatives as a militia
fighter after his father died three years ago and nobody could afford to
feed him. In the camp, he joined boys who had fought for various armed
groups.
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- But out of 33,000 child soldiers estimated to be at large
in eastern Congo by the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, the number who
have been through rehabilitation camps remains in the hundreds.
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- And for some it is still not the end of the war.
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- "We have had cases where rehabilitated children
go missing after they return to their villages," said one of the aid
workers at the camp.
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- "The rehabilitation certificates we issue have sometimes
been ripped up, and the boys re-recruited."
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- With new fighting in the hills north of Goma, aid workers
are worried that recruitment could start again.
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- Safari was in an RCD-Goma battalion that launched a major
attack against government backed militia recently in fighting which has
raised additional doubts over efforts to put in place a coalition government
under a peace deal.
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- Not far away in the northeastern Ituri region, French
troops are trying to restore order after clashes between tribal militias
who killed hundreds of people -- many of them hacked to death and some
eaten in cannibal rituals.
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- But the French are not moving as far as Lubero, where
Safari fought what he hopes will be his last action.
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- "I was in a group of 1,500 men. There were 15 young
boys like me. We were made to march in the front line," he explained
serenely.
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- "We boys used Kalashnikovs. I had three cartridges
attached, and we also helped load up the rocket launchers," he continued.
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- Several of his peers were killed in the fighting, but
after a lull Safari asked his commander if he could be released. His commander
agreed that his work was done.
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- After three years as a militiaman, Safari now looks forward
to getting an education.
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- He clapped his hands and jumped with glee when told he
would be moved to a proper school after his stint in the camp.
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- "When I grow up, I want to be a priest," he
said. "I want to do good in the world."
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- © Reuters 2003
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