From: barnhart@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Mr. Aaron Barnhart)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african
Subject: IPS:MOZAMBIQUE: BRINGING HOME THE BRUTALISED CHILD SOLDIERS
Date: 16 Dec 92 02:52:50 GMT
Organization: Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A.

Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re-
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.

Area: Asia, eastern
Title: MOZAMBIQUE: BRINGING HOME THE BRUTALISED CHILD SOLDIERS


an inter press service feature

by rachel waterhouse

maputo, dec 7 (ips) -- when alcinda saw her 14 year-old son
again for the first time after five years he spent fighting with
the mozambique national resistance (renamo) rebels, she sobbed
in joy and disbelief.

but within weeks she was desperate for help. her once bright
son now seemed violent and wild, while alcinda herself, who lost
everything in the war, had no food and no future to offer the
boy.

a peace accord signed by mozambique's government and renamo
in october, to end 17 years of civil war, could mean countless
such scenes, as an estimated 7-8,000 child 'soldiers' leave the
rebel ranks to go home.

social workers in mozambique are searching to understand
their problems and help them start normal life afresh.

chief of organisation for renamo, raul domingos, denies that
his rebel group have used children. but a wealth of information
gathered by national and international media and human rights
organisations provide damning evidence.

military analysts in maputo suggest up to 60 per cent of
renamo's force (estimated at 10-15,000) could be children under
16, some as young as eight years old.

some joined of their own free will, but many more were
captured, subjected to torture, spiritual rites and crude
military training.

from interviews with over 500 children, the united states
committee for refugees found such children suffered
acute trauma and psychological damage due to their
exposure to violence in what was one of the most brutal
insurgency campaigns mounted in recent african history.

an extreme case was 12 year-old 'franisse', from southern
gaza province. he was forced to burn his own house, saw his
parents killed and decapitated, before their bodies were cooked
and eaten by the rebels, who forced him to join them.

once in renamo ranks, the report found, ''murder was a step
in training the 'child soldiers' -- at the moment the child is
forced to kill he feels vulnerable, that turns into rage and
that destroys his moral reasoning''. (more/ips)


mozambique: malnourished (2)

the government and mozambique national resistance (renamo)
rebels, signed a peace accord in october. but, two months on,
the official process of demilitarisation has not even started
and few people have left the cities to return to their homes.

as war refugees, recently arrived people in the urban areas
are often the ones least able to feed themselves, in a country
where over 60 percent of the 15.6 million population lives in
absolute poverty and over three million depend on emergency food
aid.

assistance from gapvu, established in 1989 to help the
displaced in maputo, is in clothes and money. payments,
according to family size, range from the equivalent of five to
thirty dollars each month.

according to a nutritionist at the ministry of health, kerry
sylvester, ''there are only three pediatricians for three
hospitals in maputo city, specialised to deal with the
rehabilitation of malnourished children''.

slyvester said the hosptials take no responsibility for such
cases as soon as the child is over the most critical phase of
malnutrition.

''children living in the city for less than a year depend on
a haphazard and irregular support from non-governmental
organisations (ngos)'', she said.

although dozens of ngos operate in mozambique, most of these
concentrate their efforts in the countryside. for the freshly
arrived displaced children on the city streets, they have to
fend for themselves. (end/ips/bds/rw/oa/92)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african