Children used as ‘ cannon fodder’

Schoolkids forced at gunpoint to leave classrooms and join militia’s fight

Gunmen from the Islamist Shabaab militia have routinely abducted teenage girls to work as servants on the front line and forced them to marry fighters, according to a report documenting the abuse of children in the Somali civil war.

The report by Human Rights Watch found that in the past two years, Shabaab increasingly used boys as young as 10 on the front line. Classrooms full of children have been forced at gunpoint to leave school and fight.

Researchers found that child recruits often served as “cannon fodder” to protect adult fighters.

“It is a new, disturbing pattern using children as human shields,” said Laetitia Bader, one of the report’s researchers.

Boys who escaped were either killed or faced terrifying journeys to find sanctuary elsewhere in Somalia or Kenya.

Girls who resisted capture suffered appalling consequences. A 16- year- old girl who refused to marry an al- Shabaab commander three times her age was beheaded. Her head was brought to her school as a warning to others.

“They assembled all of the girls and said ‘ this is an example of what will happen if you misbehave’,” a teacher told Human Rights Watch, which conducted more than 160 interviews with Somali refugees for the report, No Place for Children.

A 19- year- old student from the Bakara district of Mogadishu, said: “Girls were taken at gunpoint. One girl said she could not go and al- Shabaab shot her in the forehead in front of my class.”

Researchers were told forces belonging to the West- backed Transitional Federal Government also recruited children.

Activists were disappointed that human rights barely feature on the agenda at the London conference on Somalia.

The meeting, due to take place Thursday, was organized by Britain to try to develop an international plan for Somalia.