Despite her slight frame, Constance* carried a rocket-propelled grenade into battle against Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. She bears scars on her face from the hot bullet casings that flew through the air in the heat of combat.
Constance was 13 years old when she left her home in the hills of North Kivu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to join a militia. “I went to war,” she says, from a displacement camp near the regional capital, Goma. “It was a nightmare.”
Now 14, she had joined the Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS), one of the biggest armed groups in the region, last year, hoping that it would alleviate the grinding poverty of village life. But she had to steal phones to make money, and was whipped by older militants for minor infractions.
Desperate to escape the danger and abuse, she took advantage of being deployed to an isolated location and fled to Goma, where she found her family in a displacement camp. “I suffered torture,” says Constance. “I just want the war to end.”
Armed groups have plagued North Kivu for decades, a holdover from regional wars that played out in eastern DRC during the 1990s and early 2000s. Militias during the period were notorious for recruiting child soldiers, known as kadogos, or “little ones” in Swahili.
The practice never went away, but experts say it has surged since the outbreak of the M23 conflict in late 2021. The Tutsi-led rebels have captured swathes of territory and surrounded Goma, where at least half a million displaced people camp in squalid conditions.
Rwanda supports the M23 with troops and advanced weapons. UN experts estimate that between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan troops are deployed in North Kivu.
In response to the crisis, the DRC’s weak army formed an alliance with local militias. Rights groups accuse many of these militias of committing abuses. And their use of children is ubiquitous.
According to a July report by UN experts, all armed groups have recruited children “on an unprecedented scale”. This includes the M23, which has trained children as young as 10.
According to estimates by the UN children’s agency Unicef, 30% of the members of Congolese armed groups are children. The agency says they helped 2,021 children reintegrate after leaving militias between January and June.
But the official figures only represent children extracted from armed groups through official channels – not those who escaped and kept quiet, nor those whom militias continue to hold hostage.
Marie Soudnie Rivette, DRC director of the NGO War Child, says the true number of child soldiers is far higher than reported. “It’s clearly rising,” she says, explaining that the intensification of the conflict and dire economic conditions have pushed children into the hands of the militias. “Children are cannon fodder today.”
The Guardian interviewed 14 children – three girls, and 11 boys – who had recently escaped armed groups, in one displacement camp in Goma. Most say that desertion is the only way to leave, with some describing being shot at as they fled.
Martin* says he joined a militia aged 13 because he needed to earn money. Most of the DRC is desperately poor. According to the World Bank, about 75% of the population lives on under $2.15 (£1.66) a day.
But militia life is brutal. Martin was forced to stay outdoors all day and night. Mud would cling to his body, he says. Food was scarce and beatings routine. A cousin he joined up with was killed in battle. “I asked myself why I was doing this,” says the boy, now 17. “If I died my parents wouldn’t have known where I was.”
Onesphore Sematumba, an International Crisis Group analyst in the DRC, says that the children who join militias often come from destitute homes.
Sometimes, militias also forcibly enlist minors into their ranks, he says, and have hazy ideas about what a child is. “They determine it by size, or the ability to carry heavy weights,” according to Sematumba.
Some children rescued from armed groups undergo a formal demobilisation process following UN guidelines. They receive paperwork to protect them from prosecution and can also receive vocational training.
Modeste* is one such boy. Militants kidnapped him in November 2023 to work as a cook, before he ran away early this year. “I missed a year of school. I kept thinking about that,” says the 16-year-old, speaking at a centre for children run by a local NGO in a displacement camp near Goma. He can no longer return home because the M23 occupies his village. But, to his relief, he has now re-enrolled in school in Goma.
Another demobbed minor, 17-year-old Gilbert*, escaped an ethnic-Hutu militia last year. He managed to get the right paperwork after chancing upon a helpful aid worker in a displacement camp. He has since received vocational training as a mechanic.
“We were kadogos, people could do what they wanted,” says Gilbert, dressed in a workman’s overall. “I don’t want other kids to go through the same thing.”
* Names have been changed
