Rebels forcibly recruit DR Congo youth: HRW

Rogue army officers, local militias and Rwandan Hutu rebels have been forcibly recruiting hundreds of young men and boys in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
The New York-based rights watchdog said the wave of recruitment, which began in September, "signals a possible collapse in eastern Congo's peace process."
HRW said it had interviewed dozens of escaped recruits, as well as teachers and local officials, who had described the forced or underaged recruitment of more than 1,000 young men and boys, including at least 261 minors, since September.
"Armed groups in eastern Congo are pulling youths from schools, homes and fields and forcing them to fight," Anneke Van Woudenberg, HRW's senior Africa researcher, said in a statement. "The Congolese government should urgently stop this recruitment and prosecute those responsible."
HRW said the recruitment was taking place in the Nord and Sud Kivu provinces by the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a former rebel group that integrated into the Congolese army in early 2009, as well as by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a predominantly Rwandan Hutu rebel group, and by local Mai Mai militias.
Youths have been taken from their homes, from the fields and as they walked to and from school, HRW said, adding that "those who resist risk severe punishment or even death."
Among the recruiters are Congolese army general and former rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda and officers loyal to him, HRW said.
Ntaganda was the military leader of the CNDP, a former rebel group supported by neighbouring Rwanda that agreed in early 2009 to give up its rebellion and integrate into the Congolese army's ranks. HRW said Ntaganda however maintains a parallel chain of command operating outside of the army's military hierarchy.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Ntaganda for war crimes of enlisting and conscripting children as soldiers, but Kinshasa has refused to arrest him.