Young veterans of West Africa's wars are being recruited to fight new conflicts across the region,
according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based group says poverty is forcing thousands of young men and boys to become mercenaries.
It says fighters have been moving freely between conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
The report warns war will continue to be seen as an economic opportunity unless alternatives are provided.
The study, entitled Youth, Poverty and Blood: The Lethal Legacy of West Africa's Regional Warriors, is based on interviews with about 60 veterans of West African conflicts.
Fighting to survive
It says many of the migrant fighters began their military careers as child soldiers, abducted to fight in wars, and many are guilty of war crimes and
atrocities.
War has become the only economic route for thousands of youth Peter Takirambudde Human Rights Watch A man who began fighting with a rebel group in Sierra
Leone is quoted as saying he was able to kill
civilians in Liberia "because no-one knew me there -
they weren't my people".
Economic hardship and the failure of disarmament efforts have led the men to fight for money and looting opportunities in fresh conflicts further
afield, the report says.
A veteran of several wars in West Africa said he fought to support his parents.
"The commanders said we could pay ourselves, which
meant looting," he told Human Rights Watch.
Hardship and brutality
The report says international efforts to disarm
fighters and bring them back into society have only
met with partial success.
"The fact that war has become the only economic route
for thousands of youth points to serious failings by
their countries' governments," said Peter
Takirambudde, Human Rights Watch's Africa director.
Corruption among commanders and disarmament officials
in Sierra Leone and Liberia is partly to blame, the
report says.
New governments in these countries are said to have
failed to correct many of the problems that had
fuelled the original conflicts - inequity, warlord-ism
and weak law and order.
More than two-thirds of the former combatants from
Liberia interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they
had received offers to fight in Guinea and the Ivory
Coast within the last year.
The report says the migrant fighters were victims - as
well as perpetrators - of human rights abuses, unable
to escape lives of brutality, hardship and drug abuse.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/4438497.stm
Published: 2005/04/13 10:39:28 GMT
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