The RUF has a long history of using child soldiers, from the first years of armed conflict. The RUF specifically targets children for recruitment as child soldiers, forced labor, and sexual exploitation. In just two health clinics during the first half of July, MSF monitored a caseload of 9,000 people, indicating the makings of a health crisis. MSF has seen a rise in the number of patients with bloody diarrhea, many of whom are severely dehydrated. Five of the 10 samples tested were diagnosed as Shigella type 1, which is the most contagious form of diarrhea and can lead to epidemics.
Malnutrition is also a serious problem.
A feeding center run by an international aid organization received 170 severely malnourished and 500 malnourished children during two weeks in July 2000. Diamond trade from areas occupied by rebel forces, terrorizing civil population, is the main financing source of the civil war - or even the main cause of the civil war, as many analysts say. A report by Partnership Africa Canada points out that other countries that have faced the same social and political problems as Sierra Leone have not degenerated into such levels of violence. Traditional economics, political science and military history are of little assistance in explaining Sierra Leone's conflict. The point of the war may not actually have been to win it, but to engage in profitable crime under the cover of warfare.