Chad vows to absolve child soldiers who are a part of government army and rebel groups across the conflict-torn central African country.
President Idriss Deby’s government made the commitment in an agreement signed with the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF. However, it had previously denied allegations of employing children to fight rebels.
Lately, an inquiry by UNICEF has revealed that 300 children, many as young as 8 and 11, are serving in government military forces in the central Chadian town of Mongo alone.
In order to find out the actual number of conscription of children, UNICEF in collaboration with Chadian authorities would conduct a census across the landlocked country.
Chad’s secretary of state for foreign affairs, Djidda Moussa Outman, said the government had already started demobilizing the child soldiers at Mongo as a strong sign of Chad’s goodwill. However, he insisted that the government had never intentionally signed up children into the Chadian army.
Only a few months ago, government ministers were categorically denying there were any child soldiers in the army’s ranks and some even accused UNICEF of trying to damage Chad’s image with reports of the young combatants.
