Guns slung over their small frames, the children chanted “Allahu akbar,” as they surrounded her home in Solhan town in Burkina Faso’s Sahel region. As that violence increases, so too does the recruitment of child soldiers. “We are alarmed by the presence of children with armed groups,” said Sandra Lattouf, the representative for the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, in the country. Experts on child recruitment say that poverty pushes some kids toward armed groups. Amid this raft of problems, Burkina Faso must now also figure out what to do with the children accused of being affiliated with armed groups.

Source: Daily Nation August 01, 2021 07:07 UTC