By Violet Ikong
It was a cold evening in late 2018 when armed men in camouflage uniforms stormed Katsiru, a village in North Kivu, a province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their mission was to kidnap and recruit children into their rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Bigera* and his mother were less than five minutes away from Katsiru when they were caught in the rebels’ ambush. Bigera’s mother was raped in his presence, then Bigera – 11 years old at the time – was told by the rebels he must go with them and become a child soldier, or he would be killed.
“I was already trembling with fear and without a choice having watched what they did to my mother. I agreed to join them hoping that I would one day get an opportunity to kill the man who raped my mother,” Bigera recounted, hiding his face and trying to conceal tears.
Stories like Bigera’s are common in DR Congo, where decades of conflicts have ravaged the country’s eastern region. The conflicts are largely a struggle for control of mineral resources in the country, and that struggle has displaced over 7 million Congolese, 58.5% of them children. Over 100 rebel groups operate in DR Congo, which means children are constantly at risk of being kidnapped and recruited as child soldiers.
“They [rebels] go to villages and camps for [internally displaced people] to recruit children. They capture the children and ask them to choose between being recruited and killed. These children usually have no choice but to say yes to being recruited,” said Alain Bayongwa, a Congolese man who works to rescue and rehabilitate child soldiers.
When the rebels left Katsiru the day they raped Bigera’s mother, they took scores of children, including Bigera, to a camp where they trained the children over a period of months to fight with sophisticated weapons and serve in different capacities as combatants, spies, and messengers. Those days of training were Bigera’s darkest days.
He and other newly recruited child soldiers were scared to carry out their assigned tasks. The rebels exploited their innocence by manipulation.
“They told us that even as children, we could command respect, and that if anyone disobeyed us, we had every right to harm them,” Bigera said.
“Children take whatever an adult tells them and that’s why the rebels love them. They know they can easily manipulate them. That is why most child soldiers are more dangerous than adults. If they give orders and one fails to obey, they remember the words of the senior rebels and proceed to harm that person immediately,” Bayongwa said.
Bigera spent four years with the rebel group, and then in 2022, he killed his mother’s rapist – to whom he had become a personal escort – when the rapist was high on alcohol and drugs. Knowing his life would not be spared if the other rebels discovered what he had done, he fled to a faraway location where he met Bayongwa, who took him in and set him on the path to healing and rehabilitation.
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Bayongwa is drawn to children like Bigera because as a child, he nursed ambitions of becoming a child soldier, but his grandmother took extra measures to protect him from being recruited. Years later, the experience formed the bedrock of his dedication to rescuing child soldiers from rebel groups and protecting them through his nonprofit, World Hope Givers (WHG), which he founded in 2017.
Children who escape from rebel camps are usually at risk. If caught, they are taken back to the camps and killed in the presence of other kids to serve as a deterrent and discourage others from attempting to flee. Still, some children like Carol* risk flight. After losing both parents to a rebel attack in 2012, life became tough for Carol and her seven siblings, leading her to enlist in the Nyatura rebel groups – Nyatura means “those who hit hard” in Kinyarwanda – and members of Nyatura have been involved in the kidnapping and recruitment of many child soldiers in DR Congo.
“I joined the group because it was my way of escaping from the pain and suffering of losing my parents. I thought I would get help from them and life would be easier for me,” Carol recounted. Contrary to her expectations, she ended up as a sex slave to the leader of the group. Unlike their male counterparts, female child soldiers are often used as sex slaves and domestic maids.
“The leader of the group announced to everyone that I had become his wife and that no one else had the right to touch me or they would be killed. I was disappointed because I was only 13 and had no ambition to get married,” Carol said.
By the time she turned 19, Carol had already given birth to three children – two boys and a girl – for the rebel who left her with the sole responsibility of catering to the children. In 2018, she came in contact with community mobilizers at WHG and shared her story with them. The team helped plan an escape for Carol and her children. They were taken to a safe place in North Kivu, to live with a foster family.
When a child soldier flees a rebel group, Bayongwa connects all those without families to volunteers who are willing to take them in as foster children and shelter them while they go through healing and rehabilitation. These families must firstsign documents agreeing not to disclose information about the children that could expose their location to the rebels they have escaped.
‘Freedom is not free’
As part of WHG’s efforts at rescuing child soldiers, Bayongwa and the team at the organization visit camps occupied by rebels to buy the freedom of child soldiers in their custody. The rebels charge $250 (CDF 710,000) or more to release each child.
They would tell you that freedom isn’t free. It comes with a price tag.
_Bayongwa Alain.
To navigate security risks, the team works with intermediaries who hold initial discussions with the rebels and inform them of the group’s desire to visit their camp and educate them and the children on the dangers of recruiting child soldiers, as well as to buy the freedom of a few of the children. If the request for a visit is granted, the rebels choose a suitable date and time and give them rules guiding the visit.
“We have to prove to them that we are a neutral body, we don’t take sides with the governmentor the rebels, and that our work is simply to save lives and protect children,”
_Bayongwa Alain
The number of children they can buy on a visit depends on available funding and the willingness of the rebels to release children. In some cases, it also depends on how many children want to be set free.
So far, Bayongwa has bought the freedom of over 80 former child soldiers, including 20-year-old Victor*, who voluntarily joined one of the Nyatura groups at the age of 15. “My mother was killed at a local market in broad daylight by rebels because she refused to give them the money she made from sales that day. The rebels fired a bullet into her head and fled with the money. I became traumatized and decided to enroll in a rebel group to avenge her death and protect my community,” Victor said.
“I didn’t know I would be made to do horrible things. I and other child soldiers raped numerous women and girls. We hurt so many innocent lives and I regret everything,” he added.
Bayongwa and team members at WHG provide psychological support to all rescued child soldiers and engage them in skill acquisition training to help them become financially independent. However, due to funding shortages, the nonprofit is unable to provide them with start-up funds, forcing many former child soldiers to re-enlist in different rebel groups.
According to Carol, “Sometimes I sleep with men for money to take care of myself and three children. My foster family has provided shelter for us, but we also need food and clothes to survive and I do not have any business or job that can generate income for me to settle those needs.”
Bigera blames the government of DR Congo for neglecting former child soldiers: “The government doesn’t care about former child soldiers who need support so they don’t return to their former lives. I’m tired of suffering and begging for food and money daily. I fear I might become a thief soon or get recruited in one of the rebel groups around.”
Pappy Orion, a 37-year-old Congolese man, is another humanitarian rescuing child soldiers through his nonprofit, Focus Congo. Like Bayongwa, he too narrowly escaped being recruited as a child soldier after his father made him leave the country for South Africa in July 1999. In his case, Orion’s uncle had arranged for young Orion, age 11 at the time, to join a rebel group as a child soldier.
“[My father] saw what became of kids who were recruited. They committed unbelievable atrocities and raped their mothers and sisters. Even when they were rescued, the lifestyle never left some of them and my dad didn’t want that for me,” Orion said.
Like Bayongwa, Papa Orion buys the freedom of child soldiers, but in his case says he is charged $400 (CDF 1,132,000.00) and above per child. The rebels see the scheme as a business, and rely on several factors to determine what to charge a humanitarian worker to have a child released to them. One such factor is location. Those living in developed countries like Orion – who is based in Germany – are usually charged higher prices to purchase a child’s freedom. Despite funding shortfalls, Orion has bought the freedom of 13 former child soldiers, and plans to continue his work.
Meanwhile, Bayongwa hopes to set up a center for former child soldiers where they can live, work, and earn money, so they don’t return to their former lives.
While there is no precise data on the number of child soldiers in DR Congo, the United Nations and experts say the number is in the thousands.
*Names changed to conceal the identities of the children
