In many other ways death is the constant companion of southern Sudanese children. These girls and boys know that when they walk through the woods and grasslands, any one step they take could activate a land mine. Day and night, children of all ages listen for the sound of warplanes-and the bombs that inevitably follow. The children are always on guard, ready to hide from the rebel raiding parties that will burn their village, steal their food, and rape or kill or kidnap them. Both armies routinely abduct civilians.
Children are prize catches.
African slave girls as young as eight years old are used for sexual pleasure within the Arab communities where they are held. Their genitals are mutilated according to East African Islamic custom. I saw with my own eyes little southern Sudanese girls who had been subjected to ritual genital mutilation. The tender parts of their genitals had been cut away and the wound crudely stitched closed-all without anesthesia. Many girls die of infection before the wound heals.